The Five Of Us
by Little.Broken.Wings
Summary: "A tale following Bakura, between the events of Kul Elna and what you see in the Memory World. Before he was hellbent on revenge, before he was even known as 'Thief King'. Discover what he conveniently left out when he retells his story, including myself." gemshipping up for interpretation.
1. Kul Elna

**_ Kul Elna_**

You like to think you know what happened at Kul Elna.

How the soldiers burst into the village, swinging swords and wielding fire as they gathered up men, woman and children alike, and threw them into a cauldron like meat in a stew.

I'm sure you've heard about how young he was, how he watched as his mother, father, and siblings were forced out of their home onto the streets and how the small boy found shelter, hidden from the royal guard as his whole world was destroyed and everything he knew burnt and collapsed around him.

It nearly was. Death and destruction _did_ rule our town that one fleeting night, but he wasn't the only one to witness it.

No, other than the one you know as Bakura, there were a handful of other survivors, five to be exact. And one of them was me.

**oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo**

_**Ok first chapter is really very short! But it's just a little prologue**_

_**EDIT: this fic is currently being rewritten and revised chapter by chapter thanks to the help of my long time reviewer and now beta crafylion! So a massive shout out and thank you to her~ hope it makes your reading experiance more enjoying, again thanks for reading!**_


	2. Demons

_Demons_

Did you know they called our town the town of thieves? Travellers were advised to stay clear of our small town. Our small town with only a hundred and four residents. Our small town that was apparently overrun with murderers and rapists and thieves. And yes, our town probably did have the odd seedy member. I'm sure your very own street isn't completely free of sinners, but we were not over run with _filth_. And the acts that were committed by the hands of our criminals were hardly worthy of being burnt alive and melted down into…

It was because of our hair. Did you know that? Every three in five members of Kul Elna had strikingly white hair. No one knows why, or how, but the people of bigger towns and villages found what they deemed to be a worthy answer: 'demons'.

I sometimes look at my younger sister, Amunet, with her warm brown eyes and dusty skin, and the bright contrast of feathery white hair, and I laugh. This girl, with her chubby cheeks and too small hands was not a demon. She couldn't possibly be.

_He, _on the other hand…

I sometimes wondered.

You know him, I'm sure.

Bakura, the oldest living survivor at the ripe old age of ten years old and the leader of our little group. His hair is the same stark white as many of the other Kul Elna villagers, but sometimes, when I look at him and his smokey hair, I think even if his hair had been as dark as ebony, by now it would have already been lined with grey.

Because he takes every little bit of hardship personally, and feels every spike of stress like a nail in his flesh, and from the age of ten, he became the soul protector of four younger children. It shows in his hardened face and his taut body and, accompanied by his white hair, he does indeed look demonic.

But it's not Bakura who attracts the most attention for his demonic appearance. The second oldest survivor from Kul Elna is a lithe girl with willowy long limbs and long white hair that trails far below her waist. But unlike the rest of us, it's not her hair that grabs unwanted attention; rather, it's her skin. Her skin is almost as pale as her hair and in the right light it seems to glow. When she walks through the streets, she looks like a ghost. Her name is Kisara, and she was nine years old when Kul Elna was destroyed.

I think Kisara's appearance is even more shocking when coupled with Teana. Our third and final girl in the group is the single most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Her hair is dark and cropped around her face and her skin is the same dusty brown as most. Her features are perfect; she sometimes looks like a statue fit to reside in a pharaoh's tomb. Her eyes are like sapphires set in carved bronze. When she and Kisara walk side by side, it has the same effect as lining up ebony and ivory. So different and yet both so beautiful.

And it's such a shame, to walk the deserts and back alleys hidden from sight with these four remarkable people. These four remarkable people should be in the palace, beside the pharaoh and recognised as the beautiful beings they are.

We are the real tragedy from the events of Kul Elna. The pharaoh men may have left with golden trinkets, but they left behind four valuable gems.

oooooooooooooooooooo

We spent the first four years of our lives after Kul Elna moving from village to village picking up crumbs like scavengers. We were lower than slaves and as unwanted as bandits, and all we had ever done was _survive._

After years of being looked down upon, we all soon honed the skill of disappearing. We could walk through a town in night or day, picking up scraps and leftovers as unseen as an army of ghosts.

At first, we were nothing more than unwanted. A mismatch group of orphans who appeared for a couple of days and disappeared just as quickly in passing villages, but we were treated so much worse. We were treated like we were scum; thieves or criminals and it grated on Bakura something terrible.

As we grew, Teana and Kisara became more and more beautiful and Bakura became all the stronger. He had to be, to fend off filthy men with grabby hands. Bakura was the one to fight away anyone who dared threatened our little gang. As self-proclaimed leader, he made sure to stay as fit and as healthy as one could possibly be, feeding on scraps and scraps alone so he could always defend us. He walked around with his homemade dagger tied to his thigh and his eyes darting every which way, expecting every single person to turn on us. And this only caused more problems. The bigger he got the more men began to notice _him_ and his arrogant attitude.

"You think you're big, huh kid?"

"Think you can play with the big boys?"

Bakura didn't think he was big. No. He just thought they were all small.

And Bakura's abrupt brawls caused us nearly as much trouble as the girls good looks. But that's not to say my sister and I were entirely not at fault.

Amunet was pretty much useless when it came to the survival of our group. She was small and young, and didn't understand much of our predicament. When she was scared she, would pine for me or one of the girls to pick her up and when we were hiding she had trouble staying quiet.

I, myself, am very small. I was only two years younger than Bakura and he towered a good foot or so above me. I wasn't quick; actually, I was very clumsy and I knew as a boy, as a one day _man,_ I should have been able to protect our group the same way he did… but as well as my small stature I also lacked Bakura's bravery, and for that I hated myself. Every time Bakura was shoving away leering faces or punching a man in the gut for a lecherous comment, I stood on the sidelines and wished I could help him I wished I could halve the burden that lay on his shoulders. I wished I could protect Teana and Kisara. I wished I could teach Amunet how to survive. But I couldn't.

**_Ooooooooooooooooooooooooo_**

**_Another short-ish chapter but this is just a little introduction to our five main characters._**

**_Any guesses who the narrator is?_**

**_Amunet = Amane_**

**_Teana = Téa_**

**_Thanks for reading thus far. I hope I captured your imagination and you'll trust me that it gets better from here on out. _**

**_(revised)_**


	3. Flames

Flames

Bakura and I were walking through a village in the burning heat of midday. The streets were pretty much deserted apart from the odd, brave soul. The girls were off finding shelter for the evening while Bakura and I were looking for scraps of food.

It was a horrible and fruitless task on days like today. We had to be quick before the heat ruined any remains, but it was days like this people that left their waste outside to rot. Well, that was usually true, but in this particular village the streets were bare, only covered in plumes of sand and waves of heat.

"Fuck this," Bakura cursed and grabbed my arm to turn me around to walk back the way we had come. "We're not going to find anything in this heat. Let's find the girls."

I nodded as we walked back down the path. I was grateful. Water was far between our meals; we didn't need to be sweating out our only remnants of water in our bodies, so the sooner we got to shelter, the better.

We turned down an alley between two stone buildings and were greeted with the blessing of shade. I felt my feet falter and I stood still to embrace the temporary cool. My skin was pale. Not white like Kisara's, but a lot lighter than the average Egyptians, so I tended not to fair so well in the heat.

"Hey," Bakura grunted when he noticed I was no longer walking besides him. "We've got to keep moving."  
I agreed. Mind and soul whole-heartedly agreed, but when I forced my body to move, it didn't stroll forwards as I intended, but instead caused me to slump against the wall of the cool building.

"Just… a moments rest," I muttered and closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them again everything seemed smudged at the sides and Bakura's face floated in front of mine.

"Hey." A hand shook my shoulder and everything blurred a little more. "Don't mess around, we've got to get back to the girls."

Yes. I agree Bakura. But my body doesn't.

"Hey… don't close your eyes. Ryou."

That was my name.

"Ryou!"

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

When I awoke, lukewarm liquid was being poured down my throat. I coughed and spluttered and lightly pushed away the hand holding the bowl pressed to my lips.

"How're you feeling?" That was Kisara speaking, but it was Teana giving me the water.

I took a moment to wriggle all my limbs and run my hands over my face. I was fine. A little sluggish, but I was fine. "I'm ok… what happened?"

"You fainted. Idiot." The gruff reply came from Bakura, who was crouched over on the far wall. We were in a small room with a very low roof and mounds of bags and crates. Amunet was lost in a bundle of blankets on Kisara's lap and my head was rested on Teana's legs. At that realisation, I promptly sat up and took the bowl to drink for myself. Not that I was intimidated by Teana's beauty. I thought of her like a sister, but I tried not to get too intimately close to her, or Kisara, to make sure those feelings never _ever _formed.

"Where are we?" I asked as I finished off the water in the bowl.

"A storage room. It's a hole dug in the ground outside someone's house." Teana explained, pulling her knees close to her body, now I was no longer obstructing her legs.

"We have to be quiet. And we'll have to leave early in the morning to make sure we're not caught by the owners," Bakura instructed, looking up at the trap door above his head in contemplation. "Go to sleep now. I'll wake you when we're leaving."

Kisara immediately started to settle down, adjusting Amunet in her arms so she could sleep more comfortably. However, Teana and I were hesitant.

"I can take watch," I suggested. "I've already rested."

"You need more rest." his stormy gaze was still on the wood of the door above. "I don't need you collapsing again tomorrow."

Teana looked at me with thin lips. It was clear she wanted Bakura to sleep, but agreed I needed to rest also, so she kept her concerns to herself and curled up, her back tightly pressed against a crate.

"Bakura…"

"Sleep."

So I did.

—

When I awoke, it wasn't from Bakura's grunted commands that it was time to leave, but instead from shouts and yells coming from above our shelter. I sat up groggily and turned to Bakura for answers. He greeted me with a strict look that told me to stay silent. He had his head bent awkwardly, trying to press his ear to the wooden door. The shouts got quieter as if someone was walking away and then a woman's scream pitched louder above the yells.

"What's going on?" Kisara asked in a hushed tone, but still received a pointed glare from Bakura, causing her to hunch in on herself and draw Amunet closer to herself, but Amunet squealed and wriggled in her grasp.

"Shh, Amunet," Teana, now also awake, soothed the youngest girl from the other side of the room.

We could still hear the distant shouts for some time, but it seemed they weren't getting any closer but it was clear there was some kind of commotion going on in the town above us.

"We have to leave," Bakura finally confirmed, grabbing together our few meagre possessions in our only brown bag.

"Ryou!" Amunet whined, finally struggling out of Kisara's grip, which had slackened, and threw herself into my chest.

"Keep her quiet." Another strict demand from Bakura.

I did my best to sooth my sister by stroking her hair and whispering to her as the others gathered everything up to leave. They also grabbed a few rations from the crates. While we were getting ready voices approached our hiding place again. The voices were male and laughing viciously, but the words they spoke were muffled and I was unable to hear what they were talking about. Amunet whined in my arms and I tried to place her face between my neck and shoulder to silence her, but now she was sobbing. I looked up to see my three companions staring pointedly at me to keep my sister quiet. I rubbed her back and bounced her slightly on my knee and her sobs softened but did not halt completely. However, the decrease in sound made us all acutely aware that the talking above us had abruptly stopped.

With a crash, the trap door fell into our hiding place and landed awkwardly on top of Bakura, who let out a strangled yelp as he was temporarily crushed. Teana let out a startled scream and dived to cling to my shoulder and Amunet's sobs were now frightened wails. Bakura was struggling with the door that had fallen on him when a gruff looking man jumped down onto the door, crushing him once again.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Hide aways, huh?" the man grinned a toothless grin and I felt my stomach churn. He eyed our small chamber and his eyes fell on a shell shocked Kisara, who had pressed herself up against the wall, her bright blue eyes wide as the moon as her small frame trembled all over. The man leered and grabbed her small arm, hoisting her up. Then with effortless strength hauled her up, out from the ground.

"Kisara!" I yelled and thrust my crying sister into the arms of Teana. I struggled out of the hole to chase after them, both but as I scrambled to my feet outside, I was overwhelmed by the smell of smoke and heat of flames. The whole village around me was on fire. Men with swords were chasing the villagers through the burning town. Yells and screams filled the air and, for a second, I was back there. I was back in Kul Elna, watching my mother and father being dragged away. Then I was choking on smoke and tears and an arm grabbed me from behind, hoisting me off of my feet. A hot blade was placed on my throat, not as threat, but as an act of murder. The blade cut into my neck cruelly and then a strangled yell rang in my ears and I was dropped to the ground.

"Get up!" Bakura was pulling my arm, his demanding tone wracked with fear. "We have to go. We have to get out of here!"

"B-but..." I clutched my bleeding throat and peered into the blurry night. "Kisara!"

"She's gone!" Bakura had me on my feet now and a noise of devastation behind us reminded me of Teana and my sister.

"She can't be gone," Teana pleaded. "We have to go find her!"

"She's probably dead!"

"You know that's not true!" It was a rare occurrence for me to raise my voice to Bakura and he stared at me, shocked, as I turned glaring at him. We knew they wouldn't kill Kisara. Not with her hair and skin and bright blue eyes. They'd sell her off, or keep her, but they wouldn't kill her.

"We can't save her." Bakura's tone was sobering, and though I was mortified at having lost one of our own I decided I wouldn't risk loosing another, so I nodded at our leader begrudgingly and turned to flee the burning town with bandits and flames hot on our heels, the memory of Kul Elna breathing down my neck.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooo

As the sun rose, the four of us collapsed. We had run all night out into the freezing desert until we were far away from that village… and then we ran some more.

Now we sat exhausted as the sun baked the ground beneath us and we all spared a silent moment of contemplation for our lost friend. Every time I thought of Kisara's terrified face frozen in that moment of panic, bile rose in my throat. If only I'd kept Amunet quiet. If only I had grabbed for Kisara. If only I hadn't panicked at the sight of the burning town. I could have saved her. I could have saved my friend…

But she was so much more. Us lone survivors of the town Kul Elna, orphaned and alone, we were more than friends. We had become family due to circumstance and now we were experiencing the loss of a loved one all over again.

"We need to keep moving before noon, or we'll bake to death out here." Bakura's instructions were half-hearted; they lacked their normal biting order.

"Shut up, Bakura." Teana said without much heart, drawing her knees to her chest.

Bakura glared at the girl, who looked so lost without her ivory counter part, but he didn't retort, nor did he mention moving again for a good hour or so. We all just sat in silence and watched the sun rise and bathe the sky in an appropriate blood red colour.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo

**_So yeah Kisara got taken away :(_**

**_But if you've watched the series you'll know her knight in shining armour comes along soon enough! Hope you all enjoyed this, again the chapters will be short like this. I will try updating every Wednesday and Sunday (give or take, so actually this chapter is late)_**

**_And our narrator is Ryou!_**

**_At the moment our character's ages are as followed_**

**_Bakura – 16_**

**_Kisara – 15_**

**_Ryou – 14_**

**_Teana – 14_**

**_Amunet - 6_**

(revised.)


	4. Nile

_Nile_

We didn't find another village for quite some time, but instead, we broke from the sandy plains and stumbled upon the greenery that lined the Nile. We used the canopy of the trees for shade and the current of the Nile for direction, and for a moment, I almost forgot we had lost one of our own.

Bakura was leading the way, although he never said where we were going, the three of us just blindly followed. We walked this way for a whole day and through a break in the greenery, we could see an upcoming town, larger than the previous, with a wall surrounding half of it in a semi-circle and fields of crops lining the bank of the river.

"Bakura, wait…" Teana whined, stretching out her hand in a blasé attempt to reach him, "we'll be there in less than twenty minutes. Can't we take a moment to rest?"

Bakura turned on the girl with his trademark scowl. "We can rest at the Town."

Teana tried to match his expression, but quickly broke it off and looked longingly at the Nile. "I haven't seen any hippos for a while… or crocodiles," and then suddenly, her intentions were clear. "We're muddy and filthy. We can't walk into the town like this."

Bakura looked like he could really care less about the state in which he approached any situation, but suddenly, the idea of bathing greatly appealed to me also.

"We'll take only a few minutes. It's not even noon yet," I bargained and Bakura threw his hands up in defeat, knowing he was out numbered. "Whatever."

Amunet and Teana wandered off a little way behind a band of trees and reeds to bathe, away from Bakura and me, for modesties sake and we put all of our belongings in a little dip in the bank, out of sight.

I sighed in contentment as the cold water hit my baked skin and I wasted no time dipping down low until the water touched my chin. I ran my parched hands over my body a few times and through my hair and felt the sand falling out of my white tresses, but all the while, careful not to drink any of the muddied water. When I stood up again, I saw Bakura was still on the bank besides our belongings, making no sign of intentions to join me.

"You're so stubborn," I bit out as I poured a handful of water over my head.

"What was that?"

"I said…" I turned to face him, "you're so stubborn."

He sat, in silence. His legs were outstretched in front of him and his hands stretched behind him to hold him up. "Because I don't want a bath?"

I just scoffed and turned my back on him to continue running water over my body, watching the water become clear in my hands then muddy again as it reached the river. My lack of response annoyed Bakura, who sat up straighter and folded his arms in defiance.

"_Why_ am I _so _stubborn?" he persisted. I knew Bakura hated being criticized and that was exactly what I was getting at. Bakura longed for approval, to be accepted and seen as an equal, but this was impossible. No one saw a homeless orphan as an _equal _so instead, Bakura challenged them. That's why he would walk through a new town filthy dirty, because he couldn't fit in, so he would rather stand out by his own doing. And that's why I thought him stubborn. But I wouldn't dare tell him any of that, I opted to continue playing with the water, now making tiny splashes, and ignoring him once more. I watched the water ripple and waver under the influence of my hand and, for a second, I was allowed to be lost in child-like whims that I had long since been denied. I was so mesmerised by the changing rippling water that I didn't notice Bakura slink off of the bank and into the water until he was behind, me grabbing my shoulders and pushing me under the water.

I gasped and spluttered as I reached the surface of the water again and turned to glare at my attacker. "What was that for?!" I demanded, splashing at him furiously.

"You ignored me." He said bluntly before asking again. "Why am I stubborn?"

I laughed at that. "Look at you! You're the embodiment of stubbornness. You can't just let it lie that I think you're stubborn; you have to know _why_!" With that, I flung my arms to cause a mini tidal wave to drench Bakura and his still dry hair. When the water settled, he didn't move and neither did I and I suddenly felt a little apprehensive. Again, I felt that child-like spark. That feeling when playing hide-and-seek and you know you're just about to be found out, or when you've successfully stolen some of your dinner under your mother's nose before it's ready to be eaten. And I saw it in his eyes too. We were ten and eight when our childhood was stolen from us and now; standing together sixteen and fourteen, our childish tendencies seemed to have caught up on us. Bakura tackled me and, again, I fell under the water, but this time I clung to his arms dragging him down with me. We both wrestled under the water trying to keep the other down for longer, but eventually our lungs were bursting, so we both rushed to the surface. As I reached air, I took in a large gasp for breath and fitfully pushed my long hair out of my face and once I was composed again, I was stunned to hear the very rare sound of Bakura's laugh. Grinning to myself, I took it upon myself to attack him this time, while he was distracted and we continued like that for a while, wrestling under the muddy water. The only sounds that of furious splashing, the occasional yelp or scream, and Bakura's continuous laughter.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

When the girls were finished bathing, they came back to find both Bakura and me spread out on the bank, panting and exhausted from our play fighting.

"Honestly!" Teana had scolded. "We were meant to be resting!"

Bakura made an off hand remark about it being _her _that wanted to rest and that he didn't need a break, _ever. _

And so we continued the short journey to the upcoming village. The village was a very lively one, full of hustle and bustle. A market greeted us as we entered and we barely made it five steps before we had all sorts of trinkets and foodstuffs being advertised to us rather forcefully. I picked Amunet up and held her on my hip so she wouldn't get lost in the crowd and followed Teana and Bakura as they pushed through the throng of people. Teana and I would politely refuse the 'bargains' we were being offered, whereas Bakura just rudely grunted and pushed people away if they stood too close.

"This is crazy," Teana remarked once we'd found solitude in an alley that branched off from the main street.

"We should find shelter early on, and then wait until the market has died down and-…" Bakura had begun his normal instructions, but trailed off, as if annoyed with his own words.

"What? What is it?" I asked, trying to readjust my sister on my hip.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to just _take _things?" he asked, looking up at Teana and me. For a moment, I was too busy trying to keep hold of my sister, who was now becoming restless and fidgety, but Teana was not distracted from Bakura's meaning.

"We don't steal," She said in an icily cold tone.

I snapped my head up to look at my two companions whose eyes were now fixed on each other, both silently forcing their opinion on the other. Eventually I broke the tense silence.

"No, we don't…"

Bakura broke away from Teana's gaze to look at me. "Are you _always _going to side with her?" he asked, exasperated.

I huffed and finally got too frustrated to keep a hold of Amunet and put her down on her feet. "I will if she's right."

"Well, she's _not right_!" Teana opened her mouth to interrupt, but Bakura raised his hand to keep her quiet. "Why don't we steal? We're already treated like thieves! People already spit on us and treat us like crap. People already try to kill us!" Bakura stared pointedly at me and I felt my hand raise and touch the fresh cut that circled my throat like a necklace. "They've stolen everything from us. Our home. Our families. Our friends… so why don't we start taking back? We deserve to eat! To have nice clothes and to _own _things."

"Nothing we steal will ever belong to us…" Teana said timidly, but her quiet remark was enough to cause Bakura to throw his hands up in a rage and storm off down the alley.

"Bakura!" I yelled after him, but he didn't turn back.

"Ryou, you wouldn't make me steal, would you?"

I avoided Teana's gaze and focused on the top of Amunet's head.

I wouldn't. I would never make anyone steal. It was dangerous and difficult but that's not to say it didn't have its advantages. I thought about what Bakura had said. Last night those men had literally _stolen _Kisara away from us. So why _shouldn't_ we steal? Just things like food… just to eat and to actually be full. I put my hand on Amunet's soft white head and looked up to face Teana. "No. I would never make you steal. And neither would Bakura."  
But that doesn't mean you can stop us.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo

**_So the last chapter was a day late and this one a day early._**

**_Can't you tell I'm going to be great with upkeeping this?_**

**_Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews I've received so far. I haven't asked for reviews at all throughout this but I wont lie when I say they really made me feel great so thank you so so so much! _**

**_Not much to say on the actual chapter! Hope you enjoyed it :D _**

**_(revised)_**


	5. Thieves

_Theives_

Eventually the three of us caught up with Bakura who had calmed down considerably. I didn't tell him about my silent decision that thieving was an _option_ at the very least, instead I kept my thoughts to myself and helped my companions find a shelter and thanks to size of the town we were not short of options. We found a hollowed out wall, an abandoned loft area, several storage areas and even a dune that backed up against someone else's home providing a decent amount of shelter. Eventually, after sifting through every possibility we decided on the hollowed out wall.

As I previously mentioned the town was encased in a semi circle of sand stone, the wall was about two and half metres thick and twelve feet tall. The townsfolk used it for all manner of purposes including hanging washing on, for children to play on or for storage due to the fact that at regular intervals along the wall there were arch ways that lead into small rooms. The particular spot we had decided on was not actually an official room, therefore belonged to no one which is why it was so appealing. It meant we could stay there for a while without worrying about trespassing.

The stretch of wall we had occupied was right behind a series of towering blocky buildings, behind a mound of long forgotten crates and barrels. There was a jagged gash in the wall that led into a small dry area, devoid of light but completely hidden and very practical for staying long term.

After settling in Bakura and I left the stuff with the girls and went on our daily, agonising, search for food. Upon leaving I bid the girls farewell by name and stumbled over my words when I nearly said bye to Kisara. Bakura promptly grabbed me by the collar and hoisted me out of the hole in the wall before I could make things worse.

We followed the wall for a while until we broke out into a road. The time we had chosen was not ideal for scavenging, Ra was already travelling in the far east and darkness was creeping up the horizon. But I think both Bakura and me knew we weren't really going to be scavenging tonight.

Every corner that we turned I knew Bakura's hand was itching for the blade on his thigh. The homemade dagger that was more for practical purposes than for protection never left Bakura's side. I think it made him feel safe, although he had never used it before, he would more likely use his fists if provoked into battle.

We walked past groups of men and woman alike and even past a couple of bustling taverns, their occupants spilling out onto the street.

"The night life here is like nothing I've ever seen before…" I mused as we made our way through a small crowd surrounding a hot fire. "I bet this is what Pharaoh's city is like…" Bakura merely grunted in reply, eyeing up a drunken man staggering away from the crowd and into the darkness of an alley on his own. When Bakura turned back to me we held each other's gaze for a moment before I nodded and we silently followed the man.

The man was about twice Bakura's age and was a sorry sight. It appeared that he had vacated the tavern to empty his stomach and he was now slouched against the wall with spit in his beard, eyes lolling to one side and muttering incoherently to himself.

"Pathetic." Bakura growled and knelt down besides the man, un-sheaving the dagger from his thigh. The drunken man whimpered at the sight of the blade. I nervously stepped from foot to foot looking back up the alley expecting the man's friends to come and find him.

Bakura used his dagger to cut of the cord of the man's coin purse than held the small rough bag in his hand, squeezing it tightly. He then raised the hand holding the dagger to the side of the man's face and he placed the flat on the blade on the man's cheek, holding the coin purse in front of his face. "You don't deserve this."

I felt my mouth go dry as I watched Bakura staring at the man with absolute contempt. "What are you _doing?_" I hissed and Bakura's white head snapped up as if he'd forgotten I was there.

Without another seconds hesitation we both exited the alley like the phantoms we were so practiced at being.

When we returned to the girls Bakura dropped the coin purse on the ground in front of Teana. Several shining coins fell out of the sackcloth bag and one or two rolled along the floor. Teana sat and watched the metal disks glint in the dim light of our shelter before she turned over and slept, without a single word.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o

The next day the four of us ventured into the market place and gorged ourselves on food. We had enough money to eat better than we had in years and also stock up enough for later on. Teana was less than happy about the situation, but didn't voice her complaints. Amunet was thrilled at the prospect of a real and decent meal and I vaguely noted she probably never remembered ever having a full meal to herself. Bakura was full of himself as he threw the money about trying new and interesting things, all the while a smug grin sat on his face. But soon the money ran out and we returned to our shelter, pleasantly full.

Teana sat herself down on the hard floor and curled in on herself, seemingly exhausted. I knew that throughout the whole day she was having a war with herself. She deemed the world around us as sinners and that all the cruel acts against us were unjustifiable because Teana had never done anything wrong. She didn't deserve to be outcasted, or looked down upon. But now she was indulging in the profits of a sin and she was obviously morally conflicted about their situation. I was about to go over and comfort her however Bakura beat me to the punch and sat down beside her, his legs crossed and eyes down cast. A little shocked I sat down where I was and Amunet crawled into my lap.

Bakura shuffled a little awkwardly and Teana was looking at him, her fine eyebrows furrowed together. "Are you ok?" she asked, at his uncharacteristic behaviour.

"Yes." He looked up and snapped at her then recoiled at the spite in his voice and huffed out a sigh and his shoulders slumped. "I got this, for you."

Bakura pulled out a long colourful scarf and pulled it through his fingers to straighten out the pattern. It was embroidered with beautiful silk thread and beads and made in the same colour of the pink that streaks the sky at sunset.

Teana's already large eyes doubled in size as she stared at the beautiful garment.

"I'm sorry about stealing." Bakura said so fast that the worlds tumbled over each other. "I'm sorry about Kisara, and not wanting a bath and always arguing with you and—" Teana threw her arms around Bakura's neck in a tight embrace but Bakura's hands stayed firmly in his lap holding the scarf and I watched the whole skeptical like a fly on the wall. I felt that I shouldn't be watching or listening on in their privet moment and a spike of jealously consumed me for a second at how close they seemed.

Eventually Teana released Bakura and took the scarf from him to study it closely she then smiled brightly and uttered a simple 'Thank you' that caused Bakura's face to break out in a mixture of embarrassment and smug pride.

I rolled my eyes and shuffled Amunet into a lying position to get her to go sleep and then led down beside her myself.

When Teana and Bakura said goodnight to me, I didn't reply and pretended I was already asleep.

I don't know why.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooo

_**So our thieves have started and a little bit of Bakura's dark side snuck out in this chapter, but quickly redeemed with his apology to Teana**_

_**Nothing in this chapter was intended to be romantic btw**_

_**The main relationship this fic will focus on will be between Ryou and Bakura**_

_**So sorry if you wanted more Teana/Bakura moments other than brother/sister brawling there relationship doesn't go much further.**_

_**Thanks for reading, sorry for lateness again! I fail. From now on this will just be uploading randomly once or twice a week (whenever I remember basically) x**_


	6. Scars

_Scars_

Due to the location of our shelter we were currently occupying we were able to stay in this large town for quite some time and it was really ideal. During the night me and Bakura would target sorry drunken men and pick pocket them of any money or valuable items and then in the day during the busy times in the market place we would work together to steal items straight from stalls or peoples bags. Amunet and Teana were perfect distractions and Bakura and I did all the dangerous work. Once or twice we were nearly caught but the more we did it the more practiced and the more skilled we became and the risks seemed less and less.

However eventually people begun to recognise our faces due to often being out in the market place, some people greeted us whereas others avoided us. This didn't bother anyone until one night Bakura and I were out by the taverns and an old man yelled "Thieves!" in his drunken slur.

We went home early that night, without any coins in our pockets, and between the three of us older ones we decided it was time to move on.

From then on we town hopped as we had before. Using our money from other towns in smaller villages but risking a pickpocket or two in larger towns. We also now never left for a journey without a bag full of food and drink and could last out by the Nile for longer periods of time and for a long time we lived like this.

After loosing Kisara and settling into our lives as thieves the next two years flew by. Amunet was now a lot older though still very loud, fidgety and quite slow. We never knew why… she just didn't seem to understand things the way other people did but she was good-natured and sweet and I always tried to take my time to explain things to her. Teana had grown all the more beautiful now, a true sweet-sixteen, her body was curved in all the right places and her legs had grown long and strong due to the life she lived. She actually looked a lot older than she was, which worked as both an advantage and disadvantage for her and our group.

Bakura had stayed pretty much the same apart from now he was most defiantly a man. His lean arms had chiselled into muscles and his whole form was like a rock. I remember the days when he was stiff and easily agitated, when you could see every worry of his on his face… he was so different now. He smirked easily and laughed often. He was truly in his element when stealing and he found great pride in being able to give us all precious things. Teana still wore that scarf he had bought her all those two years ago…

And then there was me. Eventually my body had thickened out but my limbs were still long and wiry and I was still smaller than Bakura had been at sixteen. I was still short but now my forehead could rest against Bakura's chin and I could head butt him if I wanted (and nowadays, I often did contemplate the idea…)

I sometimes thought about Kisara. We never again came across her in all the towns that we visited but I often wondered if she had continued to blossom like Teana did. I wondered if she still wore her hair long and whether or not she was still so beautiful, or whether or not the hardships of her life now lined her face…

I guess I'll never know.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooo

Teana and Amunet no longer worked as only distractions but also as thieves in their own rights, using their good looks and innocence to trick and lure stupid drunken people into a false sense of security was something Bakura and I couldn't do but we were just generally more skilled at the practice. We didn't need distractions because our hands could flit in and out of someone's purse or bag in an instant, our fingers like ghostly tendrils only ever leaving behind space where there was once worth.

It was a better life that we lived than when we were first abandoned at Kul Elna. Once we were just a group of five desperate and lonely children, now we were nearly adults and we are strong and definite in our ways. We all shared contempt for the Kingdom and the older we got the more we begrudged the priests and their Pharaoh who had destroyed our family but none so much as Bakura.

He would often spit out foul un-pleasantries about the Pharaoh, his courts, or his family and would often toast a drink in honour of the maggots feeding on past rulers. He didn't disguise his hatred for the palace or the people who adored the royal family so when he informed us of our next destination I'm sure you can understand my surprised.

"The city? Why on earth would we go to the city?" I questioned him seeking out his face in the half-light of our current shelter.

"They're rich in the city." He said with a wave of his hand signally that our conversation was over, but I knew that wasn't right. I knew he wasn't telling me the truth and he wasn't even being considerable enough to try and hide that arrogant tone he uses when he had something up his sleeve.

"Whatever." I huffed and climbed out of our hole underneath someone's home. We were in a fairly large town and now I knew we were headed towards the city it made sense as to why every town we visited seemed bigger and bigger.

I wasn't walking long before Bakura caught up with me and stepped into stride besides me. "You don't want to go to the city."

He stated, he didn't ask.

"No." I didn't spare him a look, "I don't."

Bakura wanted to pry, I could practically feel the want coming off of him but he didn't ask because he knew the answer and he knew the answer was the same reason he shouldn't want to go to the city either. So he didn't ask and we walked in silence for quite some time.

I'm sure Bakura expected me to head towards the tavern that was at the centre of the town where all the night life seemed to be based so we could get a fair amount of pick pocketing alongside what the girls had managed to get their hands on yesterday but right now I didn't feel like cooperating so I headed further away into the dark back allies, following the maze of blocky buildings without any destination in mind and to my surprise Bakura followed me throughout. I expected him to yell at me, to tell me not to be so childish, that we had a job to do or to just throw his hands up and walk away from me. Eventually, he did finally speak.

"Ry…" he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from walking but also due to his strength it unbalanced me and forced me to face him. He opened his mouth and for a second I was shocked, was he actually going to explain himself to me?

"Well, well, well what do we have here? Two little thieves on a moonlight stroll?"

Bakura immediately released my shoulder and turned to face the voice that had addressed us but as soon as he had turned two big hands grabbed him and shoved him backwards, so he collided with me and we both ended up on the ground, myself considerably winded from Bakura's weight.

"We've been watching you thieves strolling around our town like you own the place!" a second, much more gruff voice interjected and from my awkward place on the ground I tried to see how many people accompanied us in the small alley but before I could count past the two that had addressed us hands were grabbing me and pulling me up from the ground.

"Put him down!" Bakura yelled pulling out the dagger from his thigh. He no longer used his awfully homemade dagger but instead a beautiful crafted knife he had stolen from an old man who Bakura deemed as too weak to own such a weapon.

Bakura had turned to face my attacker and me, leaving the other two men behind him. I wanted to yell at him, how _dare_ he be so stupid as to leave his back open for attack for the sake of _me_. It's times like this I wanted to head butt him.

And as I assumed the two men behind him grabbed him almost instantaneously. One grabbed his arm and twisted it violently so the dagger fell from his hand and the other seized him by the collar and pulled him up and slammed him against the wall adjacent to me.

"We don't need filthy street rats like you in our town," this time the voice was that of my captor and he spoke loudly right in my ear causing my head to ring.

"But we're nice guys," the first guy again, with a sickly smooth voice. "Tonight is a warning and tomorrow you better be out of our town. For good." The man who had spoken looked expectantly between Bakura and me, apparently expecting some sort of reply but we remained silent, "but just to prove a point." He stepped away from the wall that Bakura was pinned next to and walked towards me. I saw Bakura jolt forward trying to break free and a fourth guy out of my line of vision came to the aid of the other man to help keep Bakura pinned.

"Don't touch him!" Bakura roared struggling against the men's barring limbs. "I swear I'll kill you if you touch him!"

The man was now directly in front of me and he chuckled menacingly, "kill me? I don't think you'll be doing much without this." He motioned to the knife in his hand that he had knocked out of Bakura's hold. Bakura was shouting again, throwing out threats and insults usually saved for the Pharaoh and his men but I wasn't listening I could hardly hear anything above my pounding heart beat and thundering breath and the other man behind me breathing down my neck like death down an elderly's spine.

The man with the knife grasped my hand and the man behind me unwound his arm from mine and used his now free hand to clasp over my mouth.

I felt the cool of the blade against my palm and then burning pain shot through the appendage as the man plunged the blade right through my hand. I cried out behind the hand that muffled my screams and felt my fingers spasm and twitch violently. I was dully aware that the man holding the knife was blocking the view from Bakura and at my scream Bakura's stream of insults abruptly stopped and I realised he thought the worst. I ached to make some sort of motion or sound to assure Bakura I hadn't been _killed _but the man with the knife soon fixed that as he pulled the knife out and sliced against my fingers and I screamed again. Once, twice and more and more until I couldn't keep count and I couldn't keep standing and my whole body collapsed against the man behind me as the blade continued to cut into my flesh until there was a whole new and horrific feeling as the blade grazed _bone._ The man with the knife seemed shocked at the new sensation also and pulled the blade away from my hand that was now completely unrecognisable. I whimpered and felt hot tears flooding down my cheeks and over my captures hand. The man with the knife then turned away from me and walked towards Bakura who had slumped against the restraining men. The man with the knife then raised the blade to Bakura's face, still fresh with my own blood, and I was reminded of mine and Bakura's first ever mugging when Bakura had raised his make shift dagger to the old drunken man's face and uttered the words _"you don't deserve this." _As he waved the coin purse in front of his face.

"Now everyone will know what you are." The man sneered and ran the blade down from his forehead over his eye until it hit the soft flesh of his cheek. Bakura stayed silent as the blade pieced flesh, his teeth clenched together and his fists balled into the clothes of the men holding him. The man then added two final deliberate horizontal cuts under his eye and cross his cheek to inform people that this scar was no accident. The man with the knife was speaking again but the words were considerably muffled. I vaguely considered asking him to speak up before I felt my head reel and everything blurred around the edges. When I closed my eyes Bakura's face floated in front of mine and I was reminded of a day so very long ago when we were looking for food and I needed water and I had fainted.

I had fainted.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooo

When I woke up I was shaking or rather I was being _shook. _It didn't take long for me to realise I was in Bakura's arms and his face was buried in my hair and he was shaking and rocking me slightly back and forth. My eyes rolled away from my friend and up towards the strip of sky I could see between the two buildings and I noted it was just getting light. Apparently the slight movement of my eyes was enough to bring attention to my wakefulness.

"Oh _fuck,_" Bakura growled and I looked back to his face. There was blood all over his face and in his hair. Some was dry and matted but some was still bright and fresh and flowing down his cheek and over his one closed eye. "I thought you'd died you _idiot!_" he growled and held me tighter, "why'd you have to go and faint I thought they'd kill you-… you stupid fucking idiot."

I wanted to say so much, to apologise for my stupid defence mechanism, to tell him to let go off me that we should be heading back to the girls but all that I could gasp out was "your face…"

Bakura shook his head, "doesn't matter. I'm fine." He said shortly and then finally he remembered himself and loosened his grip on me and helped me to my feet. "Your hand…"

I looked down at my marred hand, a complete bloody mess that had spread over my clothes and onto Bakura too. I had to swallow to keep myself from retching, I wanted to clench my fist to hide the ruined flesh but instead I let it fall to my side, "it's fine."

"No it's not." He persisted.

"Neither is your face!" another rare occasion where I raised my voice to Bakura, "can you even _see?_ Your eye… what if…"

Bakura shook his head and grabbed me by the shoulders, "we're both alive and we have to get out of here."

I vaguely recalled being told that what had happened to us was a warning… we were expected to be out of this town by tomorrow. Suddenly a violent wave of nausea swept over me as I remembered that the girls had been out last night too, what if the same group had caught up with them after they were done with Bakura and me. I quickly scrambled to my feet and started running towards our shelter, Bakura close behind.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo

I almost started crying when we reached our shelter and saw Teana and Amunet curled up together asleep and seemingly unharmed.

"Oh thank the gods," I breathed out and fell to my knees next to my sister. Teana grumbled and stirred in her sleep.

"What time do you call this?" she grumbled and begun to sit up, "I was worried sick all night— oh my word!"

"It's not as bad as it looks," Bakura waved his hand dismissively as Teana stared at his bloodied face, "it's just bleeding a lot. I'll clean it up now and you'll see it's fine…"

Teana stared fixated on Bakura's face before finally being able to pull her gaze away and facing me, "Ryou what happened? Oh— gods you too?!"

I tried to hide my hand but the blood was clearly all over my sleeve and torso, and even in my hair from where Bakura had been holding me. "Teana please don't panic. We just need to clean up and get out of here."  
Teana nodded numbly and started gathering together some rags and bathing them in some of our water. "Bakura come here,"

"I can do it myself," he protested but Teana gave him a stern look and he slumped to the floor besides her and let her gently clean the cut and the shape was revealed to her. She bit her lip aching to say something but kept her thoughts to herself and once the worst of it was gone she gave Bakura another rag to clean off the remnants of blood. Bakura didn't seem too fussed about it but at least made a show of pretending to try cleaning the blood out of his hair.

When Teana tried to take my arm to check the damage I instinctively pulled away, "Teana really I can clean this myself," but she persistently pulled my arm and turned my hand over and stared at the trashed skin.

She stayed silent and eventually her eyes met mine. "Can you move it?"

I immediately avoided her gaze and looked at my mutilated hand. All of the flesh on one side was completely wrecked and the other a single stab wound that went straight through my palm and… I tried to wiggle my fingers, I expected there to be a flare of pain or something… _anything _but I couldn't feel anything and my fingers remained still. "I… don't think so."

Finally Amunet woke up, "hmm are we going already?" she asked as she noted Bakura packing our small assortment of things.

"Yes." Bakura replied shortly as Teana tended to my hand. She gently rinsed water over both sides of my hand and then used one of the dampened cloths to wrap around the whole appendage, covering it from my wrist to my fingers like an awkward glove.

"Ryooou," Amunet started pining and Teana turned and swooped my little sister up in her arms. "We've got to go grab some more food for our next journey," Teana said as a blatant attempt to distract our youngest companion but both me and Bakura turned in panic, "no!" I cried.

Teana halted and Amunet turned and for the first time really _looked _at me and Bakura and our bloodied clothes, "w-what happened?" she gaped, "Ryou you're hurt!" she went to fling herself into my lap and I managed to half catch her with my good hand.

"Yes Amunet he is hurt so maybe you shouldn't be hurtling yourself at him right now?" Bakura snapped and Amunet's round face crumbled at the unusual harsh tone directed at her.

"Bakura," I frowned at him and Bakura matched my hard gaze.

"We don't have time to baby her we've got to leave _now_," and only then did I hear the fear in his voice so I let Teana take care of my sister and I carried what I could and we all followed him out of the town and only an hour into our journey did I finally realise that we were heading in the direction of the Pharaoh's city.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo

So this one turned out a little longer and just a heads up that chapters will probably stay this length from now on, but hopefully wont get any longer from here on out.

Chapter's like these are why I have the higher rating

Hope the gore put no one off, Bakura's scar is obviously the scar you see on TKB later on but did anyone grab the reference to Ryou's first wound?

For the record ages now stand as:

Bakura – 18

Ryou – 16

Teana – 16

Amunet – 9

And that's assuming that Bakura is 20 when he first attacks the palace in the anime.

Thanks for reading x


	7. City

_City_

We walked for the whole day after setting off from that town. Something was driving Bakura on and he just kept on walking even when the sun was high above us and the ground was scalding beneath us.

At various points throughout the day Amunet begun to whine and we all took it in turns to carry her, even Bakura which was a rare occurrence in itself but like I mentioned before he was determined to keep moving. At first I wondered if he was running away, trying to put as much distance between us and that town as possible, but other than the split second of urgency back in the shelter earlier this morning he didn't actually seem all that scared. If anything he seemed determined. His brow was furrowed in concentration most of the day, crinkling the newly marred flesh.

Eventually night fell and we couldn't walk any further. Having passed all our opportunities for town based shelter we ended up hidden beneath some reads along the Nile, huddled together like a pack of animals.

I didn't get much sleep though as my hand hurt something dreadful and was actually making me feel sick to my stomach. I hadn't complained much during the day with plenty to think about, like trekking through the desert, but now in the cool of night and nothing but the chirping of insects and the gurgling of the Nile my mind had nothing to focus on but the pain. At first I took the pain as a good sign. It was an improvement to before when I couldn't feel a thing but even with this new influx of hurting I was still completely unable to move my fingers however that could have been because of the club like glove that covered the wounds…

I bit my lip in contemplation before looking over at my three sleeping companions. Amunet was curled up on herself with Teana spooning her from behind and Bakura was sat up awkwardly as he had fallen asleep while trying desperately to stay awake.

Noting all of their slow even breaths and still forms I slowly begun to unwrap my wounded hand.

The cloth was soaked with blood and with the grime of a day spent in the desert. I grimaced at the foul sight of my hand, I had hoped it would seem less awful than when I'd first inspected it but it was still a marred and horrible thing, but putting aside the aesthetics of my hand and the dirty and bloodied cloth I set about the task of trying to move my fingers, I tried to flex my palm and wrung my wrist but none of these movements came. After a long while of helplessly trying to move the appendage I let out a low curse and jumped to my feet and started walking through the brisk night. The air nipped coldly at my whole body apart from my hand that radiated a burning heat making it impossible to ignore.

Would I ever move my hand again? Would disease consume it? Would I loose it all together?

These thoughts overwhelmed me and I felt a heavy sickness grow in the pit of my stomach and when I was far enough away from my sleeping friends I fell down onto my knees on the river bank and let a choked sob escape my lips. I expected crying to come with ease, like opening floodgates. I thought that once I started I wouldn't be able to stop and all of the pain I felt would come out in physical form but other than a few bitter tears and forced sobs I was unable to really cry so instead I sat in the silences and mourned yet another loss.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

By the mourning I had cleaned my hand again and covered it a new set of rags before the others woke up. Once awake we gathered our things and with enough persuasion Teana and I got Bakura to clean the cuts on his face again before we left.

"Should be there before dark," Bakura said absently putting his hands behind his head as we walked in the pleasant warmth of morning sun.

"We should be where before dark?" Teana interjected.

I snorted, "Hasn't he told you?"

"Nooo…" Teana noted my annoyed tone and seemed hesitant before adding slowly, "Told me what…?"

"We're going to the Pharaoh's city," Bakura explained offhandedly, "we'll have to cover up before we go in though," he added as coolly as if we were discussing the weather.

"We're… I'm sorry did I hear you correctly?" Teana gaped at the unlikely destination, while Amunet, normally oblivious to our conversations, stared up at us with starry eyes.

"Will we meet the pharaoh?"

Teana spluttered at the childish question while I faltered in step. Bakura, however, calmly stopped and stooped to Amunet's level and put a hand on her shoulder, grinning wickedly.

"If you do happen to meet him, will you slit his throat for me?"

"Bakura," I said in what I hoped was a warning tone.

"W-why would I do that?" Amunet asked in her typical child-like way, with a tilt of her head. Everyone remained silent and Bakura's wicked grin fell from his face and he said in an equally dark tone:

"Because he killed your mum and dad."

"Bakura!" Teana yelped and I grabbed him by the back off his collar and pulled him to his feet as harshly as I could.

"What do you think you're doing?" I growled out. Amunet had only been three-years-old when the events of Kul Elna happened and everyone we knew was murdered under the order of the Pharaoh Aknamkanon and she had been far to young to understand, I had always intended to explain to her what had happened when she got older but she never really matured and still found things complicated and hard to grasp so I decided if she was happily oblivious I wouldn't taint her naiveté with our dark past and I let Bakura and the others know this and yet here he was undoing everything I'd spent the last six years doing.

"Does she not deserve to know?" Bakura challenged me with a glare on his features that caused him to grimace due to the fresh wound. "Am I not right?" he continued and I started to retort in anger when a tiny voice spoke up again.

"Then I will."

Us three older ones stared down at our youngest companion to see her staring up at us with a determined look on her tiny face, "I will slit the pharaohs throat if I ever see him." I felt myself twitch at such hard words being spoken from my little sister, "Because if he killed mum and dad he must be a bad man,"

"That's right kiddo, he's the worst of all" Bakura grinned and patted Amunet's fluffy white head, it was probably the most affection he'd ever shown the girl. I however dismissed this awful conversation and hoisted the bag I was holding higher on my shoulder and marched onwards, towards the city.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It was twilight as we reached the colossal city walls. The large gates were open and the road leading up to it was packed with carts and people leaving and entering the city. Alongside the road there were various trades men and woman shouting and calling for people's attention to the items and services they had for sale.

"By the gods…" Teana gasped, "we're not even in the city yet and it's packed!"

I mumbled my agreement into the collar of the cloak I now wore. To avoid unwanted attention the three of us with white hair had donned scarves and hooded cloaks to hide our startling white hair, a precaution we tended to take in larger towns but thought absolutely necessary here in the city.

"Ryooou, I'm tired." Amunet whined pulling at the hem of my cloak.

"I know Amunet, we just need to get inside and find some where to stay,"

"Exactly, so the quicker we get through this crowd the better." Bakura instructed and started his normal round of commands, "stick close by and as soon as we're in the city we'll find somewhere quiet to discuss—" Bakura was cut off as a scantly dressed woman ran her hand over his shoulders and leaned into him deliberately.

"Well hello there~" she cooed, apparently oblivious to the rest of us.

Bakura stared at the stranger and the unfamiliar contact, "can I help you?"

"Oooh~" the woman giggled, "Actually I was wondering if _I _could help _you,_"

Bakura's eyes widened as he finally grasped the intended meaning, "Nope. We're fine. Busy." He fumbled over his words and grabbed whoever was closest (which just so happened to me) and started quickly walking away. Once we were away from the obvious _whore_ Teana collapsed in a fit of giggles, doubling over and holding her sides.

"What's so damned funny!" Bakura growled, finally letting go of me and trying to keep us moving, now in the thick of the crowd.

"I-it's just…" Teana gasped for air and started to walk again, "oh gods you're just a biiiig strong man all the time and it takes one _woman_ and you're a stuttering blushing mess!"

"I was NOT blushing," he growled throwing a glare in her direction, but the desired effect was lost due to his grimace in pain and the fact that he was most defiantly blushing.

Teana continued giggling all the way until we reached the giant gates and found a slightly quieter street.

"Would you quit your cackling!" Bakura snapped, "I had everything under control" he murmured as an after thought.

"For someone who had everything under control you were gripping my arm pretty tightly…" I grinned and thought of it as a mild attempt of revenge for this morning's conversation.

"Maybe we should find you some female company more often?" Teana baited but this time Bakura grabbed her harshly by the shoulders and yelled loud enough to grab a few people's attention.

"Stop being so stupid! Why are girls always so air headed and stupid!"

Teana's giggling finally ceased and instead she spat back, "you're the stupid one Bakura! I was just joking!" she shrugged him off and turned on her heel, "you always take everything so seriously!"

I watched as Teana walked away and found it far to hard to take such a trivial matter seriously, "it was quite funny," I didn't even need to face Bakura to know he was glaring in my direction, "and stop glaring you'll worsen your cuts." And without another glance I followed after Teana.

Amunet stood next to Bakura shuffling her feet before looking up with her large brown eyes and asking, "you don't think I'm stupid, do you?"

Bakura looked down shocked, as if he'd forgotten she was there, or that she hadn't run off with Teana or Ryou then at length finally replied, "Nope Amunet, you're probably the smartest female I've ever had the pleasure of knowing."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Once again the four of us managed to meet up after one of our stomping off fiascos and I made a mental note to bring up the topic of breaking out of that habit.

It was dark by now, twilight was long since lost and the sun had slipped behind the walls of the city and yet the whole city was still alive.

Not in the sense of our previous towns where men still loitered in the streets in a sleepy drunken state but practically the whole city was buzzing with drunken excitement, bonfires and lanterns lit the streets and the market was still full of traders and shoppers. The air was full of so many different spices and more than once I saw people cooking food and giving it out freely on their doorstep.

We rounded a corner and found ourselves in a large square where music was playing and people were dancing.

"Wow!" Teana gushed over how beautiful the dancers were, "oh Ryou come dance with me!" she pleaded, grasping my hand.

"What?! No! I don't dance, I don't even know how to!"

"Oh pleeeease!"

"I wanna dance!" Amunet chirped and Teana let go of my hand and picked up my younger sister and frolicked into the throng of moving bodies.

"Hey!" Bakura shouted after them, "we haven't even found shelter yet!"

I waved my hand to grab his intention, "just let them have one dance."

With a huff Bakura resigned and we stood back watching the madness unfolded. Some people were complete talentless messes who threw their bodies around as if possessed whereas some moved so fluidly they looked like water in human form. Teana and Amunet looked really quite adorable joined at the hands twirling around and singing to songs they didn't even know.

"Would you boys like a drink?" an older man intercepted my thoughts, producing two large cups in front of Bakura and me.

"We don't have any money," Bakura grunted a lie.

"It's on the house!" the man beamed and I noted he was missing a couple of teeth.

"Free then?" Bakura looked up suspiciously but with that glimmer in his eye that he got when he was about to get something for nothing.

"That's what I said," the man enthusiastically thrust the cups in our hands and this time Bakura grasped it with both hands so I followed his lead and took the cup I was offered.

"Thank you," I smiled and the man left with a friendly wave and continued to offer drinks to various other people in the crowd. I was about to question Bakura about drinking the free beverage but when I turned I saw him gulping it down I chuckled to myself and sipped the drink at my own pace.

The girls danced for much more than just one dance and me and Bakura found ourselves offered a few more drinks, some from the same man, some from a pretty girl and once from a young boy and eventually we found ourselves sat with a small group of other men who were laughing and talking openly and none seem too bothered at not knowing us at all.

"That's a nasty graze you've got there," one man noted Bakura's face, "Bloody thieves eh? Gotta watch out for them."

At first I felt my heart launch into my throat when I thought the man had found out we were thieves but then I realised he had the impression Bakura had been attacked by thieves and my heart fell back into its rightful place. Bakura just nodded and pulled his hood further around his face.

We sat like that for hours and I soon realised every time I looked down I had a new drink in my hand, but despite my steady decline into drunkenness I noted I hadn't seen the girls in some time so I stood up to find them. Once on my feet the world spun wilder than some of the dancers and I found myself collapsing into the laps of the men.

"Steady on there kid!" One guy chucked and helped me sit up.

"My sister…" I begun but Bakura patted my shoulder reassuringly.

"I just saw them," he informed but his voice wasn't quite right… it was sluggish and he had a lazy grin on his face. "They'll be fine."

I nodded and started laughing. The second I started laughing I wondered what was so funny but then I realised how funny it was that I couldn't stand, and how funny Bakura sounded and how funny it was how completely off guard we were and how ridiculous Bakura's scratched up face looked and how gods damned hilarious it was the men sympathised with us with being attacked by _thieves._

And I kept laughing and Bakura was laughing too and someone gave me another drink and then Teana was next to me raising her own cup to meet mine and Amunet was playing with other young girl near by…

And everything seemed to damn funny.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooo

**_Yaaaay Happy Times._**

**_Had to started this off following the same sad themes from the previous chapter_**

**_But I'm really happy at the moment due to some brilliant news so I wanted to write something happy to I pushed the party scene forward and it actually makes more sense here~_**

**_Also as Teana is Téa's egpytian self how could she resist dancing huh? _**

**_Also next chapter we're going to see some new familiar faces!_**

**_Thanks for reading! x_**


	8. Decisions

_Decisions_

I woke up with my face snuggled into a very comfortable silk blanket, upon realising this I stroked my face against the pleasant feeling and appreciated such a fine material but as I woke up I became more aware this blanket wasn't mine and that my neck was really quite stiff from where I'd been sleeping on the ground, bar this one silky garment.

I looked around and found myself relieved to recognise where I was. I was in the square where I had gotten drunk with Bakura and watched the girls dance. Some people like myself were still asleep scattered about the open area, bathing in the morning sunlight, whereas others were up, moving things around, tidying up or eating and drinking. With a smile I realised the people eating and drinking probably hadn't slept at all yet. I wondered what on earth my companions and I had walked in on last night. I knew the city life would be very different but it was clear that we had partaken in some kind of party or festival last night… I wondered what it could be.

Scratching my neck I stood up and claimed the finely made blanket as my own.

From my more up right position I could see Amunet fast asleep near by, with a few other children, Teana talking to some women who were cooking food and Bakura off to the side speaking to a boy, who seemed about our age.

I weighed my options, and appealing as the food looked near Teana I was never that good at listening to girl's chatter so I headed towards Bakura and his companion. Bakura and the boy were sat opposite each other, cross-legged. The boy was picking idly at a piece of bread as he listened intently to Bakura who was speaking rather animatedly, using his hands to demonstrate something or rather. As I approached I noticed the boy had a fine amount of gold on him and his clothes shimmered slightly in the sun, they almost looked silky—

I paused in my tracks and eyed the blanket that I had slung over my shoulder.

"Ryou!" Bakura had apparently noticed me and waved me over, so I continued my approach and sat between the two boys.

"Ryou this is Malik."

"We met last night," the boy, Malik, nodded in my direction with a pleasant smile and I felt suddenly embarrassed.

"I'm sorry… I don't remember…" I tried to explain but the boy lifted his hand as if no explanation was needed and I got this odd air of authority from him.

"It is fine, I am not surprised really." His smile turned into a grin, "most people were pleasantly… buzzed last night."

I nodded and turned my face away from the finely dressed and well-spoken boy. "What were you guys talking about anyway?" I addressed Bakura rather deliberately.

"I was telling Malik about the towns we've visited, he's never been out of the kingdom." Bakura explained in a tone I couldn't quite place, but the information about Malik never having left the kingdom didn't surprise me; the way he dressed didn't exactly scream traveller, which reminded me…

"Oh, is this yours?" I lifted the blanket.

"Oh! Yes, it is I gave it to you last night when you were cold." Malik supplied, "but you do not remember, do you?"

I nodded awkwardly. Never left the kingdom? I'm surprised this guy wasn't in the very _palace._ Which made me wonder why on earth was Bakura speaking to him, and so comfortably? He wasn't exactly the kind of person I expected Bakura to be associate with… actually I didn't expect Bakura associate with anyone.

I noticed a silence had fallen among us three and I felt the blame for the awkwardness lie heavily on my shoulders.

"Well I should really get going…" Malik sighed and his shoulders slumped. "A lot to organise for today." And he quickly finished off the bread he had been picking at.

"Why? What's today?" Bakura asked and I remembered my earlier theory of a festival.

"Oh, yeah what exactly are we celebrating?" I took a wild stab in the dark and saw Malik's eyes widen as he stared at Bakura and me in turn.

"Well surely you know?"

Bakura snorted, "We wouldn't be asking if we knew, would we?"

"It is the prince's birthday," Malik huffed, "he gets a whole week of this wonderful partying and he does not even leave the palace to witness it."

If Malik noticed how stiff and silent me and Bakura had gotten he didn't mention anything as he rose to his feet. "I will see you both again soon, I hope?" he smiled and waved politely before walking away.

Once Malik was out of sight Bakura cursed and kicked over a nearby bucket, "of course it's something to do with the royal pain in the ass family! Bloody spoilt brat…!"

"Ryou! Bakura!" Teana was waving us over to the food, "you've got to try this! It tastes amazing, and I helped!" she beamed proudly and I stood up dusting myself off and offering a hand to Bakura who ignored it and stood on his feet on his own, bitterly muttering something about the pharaoh's son.

"Bakura…" I touched his arm to stop him directly going over to Teana. "Why are we in the city?"

"I'll explain after food," he huffed and I was quite surprised he so freely offered to explain anything at all so I didn't push the matter further and followed him over to Teana.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

The food was actually rather good and we sat and ate with a woman and her family which consisted of three daughters a mother and a father so Teana was very easily making conversation with the girls, however me and Bakura sat in silence. Eventually Amunet joined us on her own accord and she was gushing about all the new friends she had made and I smiled, listening like the dutiful brother I was, trying to hide the sadness I felt that Amunet had never had any friends her own age before.

Once all the food was gone Bakura announced we were leaving.

"What?" Teana pouted, "Do we have to right away?"

"Yes, we need to find shelter for tonight… and discuss a few things." He explained and that seemed to finalise things.

Amunet and Teana shared farewells with the friends they had met with promises they'd seen each other again tonight. The mother of the family Teana had befriended gave us some food for the day.

"Friendly people…" I mused, "everyone here seems very friendly."

Bakura merely scoffed, "all a farce."

Teana frowned, "didn't you make a friend yourself? A rather prestigious one if I'm not mistaken."

"He's not what he seemed." Bakura snapped, "He-…he's not like the others."

"Care to explain?" I raised an eyebrow at the oddly cryptic manner.

Bakura looked around, "I'll explain once we've found shelter. Once we're alone."

Eventually me and Teana let it slide and we all did our bit to find shelter, however we were not the only squatters in this town and everywhere we would normally hole up we found people already there so our task took longer than necessary and our chosen hide out, behind a tavern between some crates with a rag roof, was far from ideal.

"Alright Bakura, it's about time you started explaining," Teana sat Amunet on her lap and idly played with her hair.

"Alright, alright," Bakura played with the rim of his hood, "But you have to swear not to freak out or start yelling."

"Bakura just get on with it!"

Bakura exhaled loudly before finally speaking, "I wanna break into the palace—"

"You want to _what?!" _Teana interrupted causing Amunet to jump about an inch off her lap.

"That's freaking out _and _yelling and not letting me _finish!"_ Bakura glared pointedly and this time started a lot quicker. "We've spent the last six years in hell, we've lost everyone we know and our _almighty pharaoh _is lounging around doing fuck all in a palace made of gold wearing our families around his neck." There was a pause and this time no one interrupted, "we could kill him. With the right tactics and proper planning we could break in and slit his throat in his sleep…" his voice was now just barely over a whisper, "we get back at them for taking everything we love we'll take the thing he loves most."

My brain worked around the words for a moment before finally squeaking out, "kill _who?"_

"The prince." Bakura looked up at me, "the pharaoh's son. We'll kill him like he killed our families."

"You've gone demented." Teana said bitterly, "you'll get yourself killed!"

Bakura shook his head stubbornly "I wont."

"How would you even get into the palace? You'll be killed before you even stepped inside." Teana continued on.

Bakura seemed to consider something for a long time before finally speaking again, "Malik. He's from the palace… he's not meant to leave. He breaks out through a secret passage that no-one else knows about he said he'd help me fine it."

"And why do you think we can trust him?" this time it was me who spoke up, "how do you know he wouldn't sound the alarm the second you were inside?"

"He hates the pharaoh too."

"Anyone can say they hate the pharaoh doesn't mean we can trust them!"

"Or that they hate him enough to kill his only son."

"It doesn't matter what you say. I'm going to do this. With or without your support, I need to do this don't you get it? We have no purpose; we're going to die on these streets! Why not try and get back at this shitty world before we go down with the rest of the crap that inhabits it?" His frown transformed into something different, something wicked, his lips curling at the edges, "we could go down in history as the ones that ended this dynasty."

"Demented!" Teana repeated desperately, "They'll catch you and kill you! They'll burn you or drown you and make a sceptical of you." Her voice cracked at the end, "and we'll be made to live without you. We'll be _alone_ Bakura, we need you to protect us." She was crying now and a part of me desperately wanted to hug her and comfort her but my pride was stinging, why couldn't I look after us?

"I need to do this." Bakura repeated, looking at the ground.

"But you don't!" Teana sobbed.

"You don't get it! I want to do more! I want to go in there and slit the pharaoh's throat in front of everybody. I want to go and kill every priest and member of the court and burn their bodies down into _gold_ and I want to take back the items. I want to have the remains of our families in _my _possession and not used to punish people like_ us! _I want to parade around the city with the pharaoh's corpse trailing behind me on a lead, and keep all the gold of his tomb for myself." He stopped abruptly as if just catching himself before throwing himself off a cliff, "but I can't. I wouldn't succeed. But _this _I can do. I can sneak about and I can fight a boy half my size and I can use a blade I _can_ do this so I _have_ to."

Teana awkwardly shuffled Amunet off her lap and stood to leave but I grabbed her by the hem of her skirt. "No! You can't just run away… we're talking about this!"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore!" she sobbed.

"But we have to, this isn't something we can just ignore."

"I don't wanna sit and listen as Bakura convinces you he's right _again!"_

"Oh that's richcoming from _you! _He always picks your side!"

"Don't I get to have my _own bloody opinion?_" I wanted to shout, to sound aggressive but it came out as more of a yelp, "I always have to be the one to choose between what you two want but we never do what _I _want to do!"

Teana sniffed and rubbed the tears off her face, "o-ok what do you want to do?"

Bakura remained silent, meaning for me to have my say.

I sighed, a long drawn out sigh hoping all my pent up irritation would leave with it too. "I don't want to kill anyone." Teana made a slight noise of triumph and Bakura bristled to my side.

"However…" I made sure to think about it long and hard. I didn't want to act on impulse I wanted to make sure I was making the right decision but I was _sure _that what I was about to say was the right thing to do. "I want to break into the palace, and retrieve the millennium items."

Teana's face fell, whereas Bakura picked up a bit.

"They belong to us."

Oooooooooooooooooo0000000000 0000

**_Dun dun duuuu~!_**

**_So yeah there is a plot in here somewhere..._**

**_So yeah! Malik, hurrr I usually just call normal Marik 'Marik' but for the sake of trying to give people different names for their past selves (Bar Ryou and Bakura) I thought Malik was appropriate. You'll be seeing more of him soon!_**

**_There will be more familiar faces as we continue from here on out Malik is just the start! _**

**_Thanks for reading x_**


	9. Palace

Palace

The palace was the mighty figurehead of the city; it sat proud and gleaming like the brightest crown jewel. As we stood there in the streets I felt amazed that human hands could ever create such a thing but perhaps it was the gods themselves that created the home worthy of the God King?

"It's impossible," Teana whispered besides me and I wasn't sure whether or not she was talking to me or just simply reminding herself of the insanity of our plan, either way I didn't reply. Instead I shuffled through the thick crowd that stood staring up at the colossal building. Amunet had one had firmly gripping my unwounded hand, the other bunched up in my shenti as the taller bodies all around pushed her about roughly. Feeling sympathetic I picked her up and sat her comfortably on my hip and in gratitude she wrapped her arms around my neck, "are we going to see him?" she whispered eagerly and I could only nod silently in reply however Bakura leaned forward so he could whisper sinisterly "remember what to do when you see him?" he then ran his thumb across his neck and made a violent 'shhk!' sound causing Amunet to giggled and nod eagerly.

Teana gasped and shoved Bakura, telling him off, however he only laughed at her attempts to cow him.

I just huffed and turned Amunet away from the bickering two. I didn't have the normal strength to scold Bakura myself… my mind was elsewhere.

I looked over the heads of the swaying crowd, hot and sweaty but enduring it so they could glimpse their king, and stared at the palace once more. Could we do it? Could we break into the home of the most loved and most feared man of all of Egypt? And what if it went wrong? What if we were caught? What if Malik gave us away?

I swallowed thickly, my throat uncomfortably dry as I felt myself falling into the same thoughts over and over, running my mind through every worst and best scenario possible.

"There! Is that him?!"

Amunet's squeal and sudden frantic waving jolted me out of my thoughts and I found myself looking up at the balcony set high above us. It wasn't the Pharaoh, however it was the pharaoh's persists that were walking out of the big double doors in an orderly fashion.

The six priests, five old men and a frail looking woman, were clothed in fine linen and golden finery all that gleamed in the sun but none shone as brightly as the individual pieces they all held or wore with pride, each emblazed with the bulbous eye of Horus (bar the key like ank). The sight of the items made my throat even more parched than before. I had only ever before heard detailed descriptions and elaborate encounters of the items… but seeing them myself made my blood run cold.

_Those people are wearing my family's flesh._

As well as the six elderlies there stood three young people I didn't recognise so I tore my eyes away from the priests and focused on them instead.

They seemed to be about my own age and all a little nervous. The first was a boy, tall and slender with brown hair that trailed down his shoulders, he stood close to the priest that wore the Millennium Ring and was fitfully playing with his hands and biting his lip nervously. The second was a young girl, probably closer to Bakura's age than my own, her hair was long and dark and she stood with her fingers gently laced together, her back was straight and her chin held high, although the confidence seemed forced and in truth she looked as nervous as the boy before her. The final boy was most surely the least nervous of the three young people; in fact he seemed almost befitting stood so high above the rest of the kingdom. He wore a smug expression that seemed to command respect. He looked like he belonged on the throne…

Suddenly I felt Bakura tense besides me and Teana let out a short shaky breath and the crowd around us started screaming and cheering waving their arms and rags in the air as an elaborately dressed man stepped onto the balcony waving with a great smile on his lips, an inverted pyramid bouncing on his chest, and a small boy stood at his side.

I frowned slightly at the sight of the pharaoh's son. I thought he was meant to be my own age but he looked much shorter and even frailer than myself. (I felt my shoulders rise slightly in pride, put one glance in Bakura's direction made me crumple in shame again).

For about five minuets the Pharaoh stood there waving and the crowd cheered, all the while the priests stood dutifully still and me and my companions stood awkwardly amongst the crowd, with the exception of Amunet who was waving back at the Pharaoh with glee. The notion of my little sister cheering our parent's murderer made me sick, but I couldn't find the strength to do anything about it.

After the painfully long fanfare the Pharaoh turned to his son and said something inaudible and the smaller royal's pleased smile fell from his face but was quickly replaced with a much less genuine nervous smile. He then stood in front of his father and raised his hand to the crowd, which fell silent, and he begun to speak.

At least… I think he did.

From where we were we couldn't hear the young boy as he spoke and there was an awkward ripple in the crowd and I heard Bakura chuckle darkly however when the prince was done his father clasped his shoulder proudly.

"My son's sixteenth birthday! Your future king is a man today!" he grinned proudly down at his people, from up high on the pedestal he had made for himself.

The crowd erupted into cheers and cries even louder than before. I cringed at the loud noise when I felt Teana tugging at my arm. I turned and started to follow her and Bakura as they exited the thriving crowd and once we were clear of the meshing bodies I put Amunet down.

"Did you take a good look?" Bakura asked Teana and me with a pointed look.

"Y-yes…" Teana stuttered, "but Bakura… one of the items was in a man's _eye_ we can't rob it straight from his face!"

I blinked in surprise, not having noticed the one with the Millennium eye. However I had taken note of the witch-like woman's tauk and the man with the millennium ring, and the pharaoh's puzzle. "I think I got a good enough look at them," I lied. I had been far to swept up to take in the appearance of the scales, rod or key and had no idea what they looked like.

"Alright." Bakura nodded, "tonight during the festival we will meet Malik at the tavern closest to the palace and he will show us the secret entrance and lead us to where the item's are stored..." Bakura paused, "he also said there were some things we might need to know."

I frowned, already not trusting Malik further than I could throw him, "really? Like what?"

"He didn't say," Bakura waved off the topic. "Once we have all the Millennium items we will leave the city straight away. Until then we will rest and eat…"

"Alright." Teana huffed sounding resigned, "in that case I'm going to go see Habibah and her family until we have to go."

"Oh oh!" Amunet started jumping up and down, "yes! The other children said they were going to teach me another game today" she beamed excitedly and Teana let a smile creep onto her face and took the younger girl's hand.

"You two go on without us." Bakura instructed and Teana turned and begun to walk away immediately, apparently pleased to get away from Bakura and myself…

Once the girls were gone Bakura looked around once or twice before digging his hand into the sack that he always carried and pulled out a small knife emblazed with beads of jade set in bronze, "Ryou, this is for you."

I stared at the beautiful weapon and felt my fingers itch to reach out and take it but my mind recoiled at the reason behind the offering. "B-Bakura." I choked out, my throat still so dry, "you don't think I'll need this for tonight… do you?" I hated how pleading my voice sounded; I was begging him for the answer I wanted to hear.

Bakura looked at me with an expression I couldn't read and then he reached forward and grasped my good hand and forced the handle of the blade into my hand. "It is a present." He explained, looking at our hands that both clasped the knife now, "if it happens to be a present that could save your life…" he turned now to look up at me and I'd never seen his eyes so sharp, they were reminiscent of the dagger's blade in our hands, "then all the better."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o

When the sun dipped on the lower plains of the sky the streets filled to the brim with partying people. The festival was like what we experienced the day before but even more so. It wasn't just one square that was alive with the smell of smoke, good food and the sound of music but every street corner seemed to be hosting its own party and due to this inconvenience we ended up being late to meet Malik at the tavern he and Bakura had prearranged.

"You are late," he had pointed out the obvious as we arrived and then begun to quickly move away from the tavern, not sparing a moment for excuses or greetings. I noticed he seemed much less confident this evening. His shoulders were drawn tight and a small frown seemed permanently etched onto his features.

As we drew close to the palace I once again found myself feeling minuscule and fearful but I didn't have time to marvel at the brilliant size of the structure too long because Malik was leading us down off the path that led towards the courtyard where we had stood only hours before, watching as the Pharaoh greeted his loyal subjects. We soon were walking within the outer walls of the palace grounds, I was surprised by how unguarded and empty everything seemed and I could only assume it was due to the Prince's birthday celebration.

"This place isn't strictly off limits," Malik explained to us as we wandered through an open space, fenced in by pillars and towering statues of accusatory Gods. "A lot of commoners come here to pray during the day but as you can see at night it is abandoned."

As we continued walking I noticed a trickling stream that lay against the width of the palace wall, intricate stone designs lined the artificial bank and lily pads floated lazily on the clean water. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, this man made river so tranquil and still, its gentle bubbling was the only sound in the courtyard, other than the patter of our feet on the alabaster floor.

Just as I was admiring the stillness of the water Malik's feet penetrated the illusion of calmness as he stepped into the shallow river, the water coming up to his ankles and just grazing the bottom of his long robe.

"We follow the river, this way." He instructed, nerves etched his voice and he looked fearfully past us into the dark. Although he had told us this place was not off limits I had a feeling our presence here tonight would be questionable.

"Won't we be louder in the water? Why not stay on the ground?" I questioned and Malik waved his hand in a rush.

"Trust me, ok?" But I didn't trust him, not at all.

But nevertheless my companions and I followed the palace boy in the shallow river. Walking in the river we were completely swamped in darkness due to the towering palace walls and I realised Malik's intent and our splashing feet actually made minimal sound to my surprise. Eventually we had followed the river to a wall, where it continued underneath in a gap much too small for us to fit however the wall was only about a foot above Bakura's head, nowhere near the colossal size of the wall that surrounded the perimeter of the palace, so Malik deemed it climbable. Awkwardly we climbed over this wall, Malik was obviously much more practiced and Bakura had no trouble due to his height and upper body strength and Amunet was simply carried over whereas Teana and I struggled for a good five minuets trying to lift and pull each other over. During this time we made a lot of scuffling and grunting and Malik insistently 'shh'ed us repeatedly.

Once we finally made it over the wall we found ourselves in a miniature garden, the floor was still made of stone but there were flowerbeds and trees lining the area. The river continued to trail up alongside the palace wall where it disappeared abruptly at the far wall but before there it split off to the right to join square pond surrounded by three statues of Horus, Osiris and Isis stood at individual points and incense burnt at their feet.

"It's so pretty…" Teana breathed out

I was sure we had finally breached off limits ground, this area was clearly reserved for the priests and the Pharaoh himself, but we were still not _in _the Palace or anywhere near the Millennium items I was about to voice my complaints when Malik ushered us along the river again much to my confusion. Like before the river ducked under a wall however this one was much larger and unclimbable by anyone's standards but as we neared the wall Malik's intentions became clear.

"We should all be able to fit in that drain here," Malik pointed out, his eyes briefly hovered on Bakura as if to double-check his assumption. "Once we get through you'll be in the water ways of the palace. This is the system. The Pharaoh was inspired by the roman's on his visit in Italy… this way he and his palace have fresh water to drink or to bathe in at will and also a source of water for his garden.

Bakura huffed, "typical. While people are dieing of thirst the Pharaoh'd plants don't go dry,"

Malik was obviously much more nervous now, having officially broken the law by sneaking us thus far. "There are a few more things we must go over." I briefly remembered Bakura saying Malik wanted to say a few things.

"There will be a place to hide the young one," Malik motioned to my little sister, "she will have to hide, I do not trust her not to get caught. Secondly you will not take the Tauk."

Firstly I took exception to Malik assuming my sister, my sister the thief who had survived on the streets her whole life, couldn't come with us but was gob smacked at Malik's second demand, however it was Bakura who growled his protest.

"What do you bloody mean we can't take the Tauk?"

Malik looked sheepish, "the priestess who holds the Tauk now is old and frail and the next in line to inherit it is my sister…"

Bakura stared, thoroughly pissed, at the palace boy. "And what about you?"

"W-what about me?"

"It's inherited right? If you sister is destined to be an item holder wouldn't you be too? That would explain why you even live in the palace.

Malik scoffed, obviously offended. "I would not use one of those blasted items if the Pharaoh himself begged me they are foul things that reek of death I will be more than happy to have them out of the palace." Malik finished defiantly his gaze clashing with Bakura's.

"Then why do you want your sister to still inherit the Tauk?" Teana spoke up.

"We don't have time for this," personally I was shocked at the sound of my own voice. I was actually rather content watching Bakura and Teana question Malik's motives but despite my dislike for the boy so far he had gotten us quite far… but not far enough. We needed to get into the palace despite Malik's demands. "We don't take the Tauk, ok?"

Malik's face brightened up whereas Bakura's darkened.

"Great! No Eye and now no Tauk! What's next?" Bakura complained.

"Nothing if we don't get moving!" Teana pushed Bakura towards the drain but Malik took the opportunity to step in first and lead the way.

Getting through the drain involved being completely submerged in water as we crawled underneath the wall and when we reached the other side the water was considerably deeper and everything was darker. I shuffled in the dark, the water splashing up my thighs, trying to allow my eyes to adjust but before I could a flame ignited the way. I turned again to Malik who had lit a small torch and was stood by a large gap just above the water; I assumed he had stored the torch and flint there to keep them dry.

"She goes here," Malik motioned to the gap and then to my sister.

Amunet looked a little nervous, the water coming up to just under her chest, her hair damp and the rag she wore around her head fell limply into her face. My heart ached at the sad sight and I gathered her up in my arms, plucking her out of the water.

"You've got to be brave now, ok?"

"Please can I come with you?" she asked in a tiny voice.

Teana leaned in close to me and stroked Amunet's white locks. "We wont be too long, promise."

Without another word Bakura took my little sister from my arms and placed her in the snug, dry spot in the wall and it might have been my own imagination but I was sure I saw him give her a slight reassuring squeeze before letting her go.

And then the four of us, including Malik and leaving Amunet behind, walked up the dark waterways and as we did I felt an odd foreboding feeling hanging over us all.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooo

**_So how do you think this will go…?_**

**_Also did you guess who the cameo's were this time? The three young people (and soon to be millennium item owners) were Mahaad, Isis and Seto~_**

**_I want to say the biggest thank you to all of you_**

**_Some of the reviews I've had are actually breath taking! I can't believe the response I've had! So now excuse me while I go out of my way to thank these fantastic people by name._**

**ilovemanicures and xXxDantenshi_BluexXx** for their consistent support and equally consistently lovely reviews!

**YamiBakura1988** for reviewing every single chapter thus far!

**Kiterious **for taking the time to PM me their review when FF wouldn't let them do it directly~

**RedShadowThief and CraftyLion** for being my two recent reviewers and both taking the time to write their very long and truly lovely reviews!


	10. Escape

_Escape_

Bakura could practically hear Malik's pounding heart next to him. They were currently stood flat behind a large statue between a pillar and a wall and Malik's shuttering breaths and trembling frame did nothing for Bakura's nerves. He growled inwardly, the blond was going to raise attention and he really needed to get back to the tunnels as fast as possible and that wasn't going to be _possible _if Malik didn't calm down.

"You don't do this often do you?" Bakura joked half-heartedly and nudged the boy with his elbow.

"Not really, no." The eloquent bite came back lightning fast and Bakura couldn't help but grin. The boy was a rare breed, bitter and cynical yet educated and well mannered they were interesting and contrasting traits that captured the thief's attention. The blond was a ball of mystery and the biggest mystery of all was how he had successfully enchanted Bakura. It was no secret the thief had little time for people outside of his pleasant close circle of friends however Bakura had found himself instantly intrigued in this palace boy.

Sighing, Bakura slid down the wall into a sitting position.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Malik turned with wide and frightened eyes, his voice seething with annoyance. "This is no time to _sit down._"

"Tell me again, why are you helping us?" Bakura lazily begun as if starting a conversation in normal circumstances, he figured maybe conversation would calm his blond companion.

"I told you," Malik stared dumbfounded, "because I _hate _the Pharaoh!"

"But why do you?"

"This is hardly the time!"

"We might never get another time,"

"Not if you insist on _sitting around making idle conversation!"_ Malik hissed, having finally snapped and Bakura felt a little bit of pride as he watched Malik's calm and collected demeanour collapse but he also felt a little saddened, Malik would have been much more appealing if he had been unbreakable but alas, he was fragile. Just like everyone else.

There was a prolonged silence as Bakura studied Malik and eventually the palace boy looked away, exasperated. "Because he… keeps us here." A small frown creased into his forehead as he started to explain. "The Ishtar family has always served the King. We are his scribes and sorcerers, wise men and visionaries. We're a fine breed, like animals we are bred to be the best we can be… but we're just slaves. Slaves held up on a meaningless pedestal kept here against our will, I'm not even meant to leave the palace." Malik had stopped speaking to Bakura, he was now just talking, apparently to a wall, his eyes vacant. "Isis was the first of our family to ever be called to a Millennium Item… she was so happy and I… those items… I _hate them._ No one else understands but when I was younger I told my father that they made me uncomfortable. I told him they were dark, made from evil. I told him that they _smelled_ and he whipped me. He said the items were holy. No one else can smell the stench but I can… it is like the smell of burning flesh."

Bakura stared with wide eyes, a rare shocked expression on his face, he didn't know who this Malik really was but it was clear the boy was very much in tune with magic, probably more so than the Pharaoh's top sorcerer… this boy could sense the real origin of magic. And Bakura couldn't risk him. It was a shame really; Bakura would have liked to get to know the blond more… he would have been a good ally.

"If you get up and leave through that arch way we just passed it will look like you were coming from further up the palace," Bakura begun to explain, "and you're unlikely to come across any guards. How far away are your quarters from there?"

Malik stared dumbfounded at Bakura trying to piece his words together, obviously surprised in the sudden change of conversation, "only a few halls away… what are you suggesting?"

"That you quit while you're ahead." Bakura grabbed Malik's arm and pulled himself to his feet, "go back to your sister, and pretend you never even saw us." Bakura started to push the reluctant palace boy in the direction of the arch.

"B-But I am a part of this! I helped you…"

Bakura frowned and turned Malik around to face him again, "Yes you did and now you get away with your life. Or do you want to get caught and killed?"

Malik's reluctance cleared and he backed away from Bakura, "It is best I am not seen with you."

"Exactly."

"Thank you Bakura… for letting me part of this … act of justice. I hope you get out safely."

Bakura just grunted and started down the hall trying to piece together a map in his mind so he could locate the meeting point and find his companions, he was soon away from Malik and noticed he recognised the hall he was in… a little too well.

The gold and alabaster was gone. The stone carvings were worn away and nothing but mud brick walls… and there were stairs. Worn and crudely made stairs leading down…

And it was hot.

So damn hot.

And there was the smell of burning flesh.

Bakura felt heat burning into his chest and grasped at it in a panic but instead of clutching cloth his hands grabbed the burning metal of the Millennium Ring.

"_We are so close go back take more, take it all. Go and find them!"_

I have to find the others. Teana, Ryou, Amunet, Kisara. They are out there I have to find them.

"_Not them. You don't need them. Find the items. They hold power, power you can harness. You're strong enough just __**take it**__!"_

_"Bakura!"_

Bakura!

"BAKURA!"

Bakura's head snapped up and he dizzily wondered when he had sat down. The stonewalls were replaced with great towering pillars again and the burning heat on his chest had faded to the familiar feeling of cold metal on flesh and running towards him was Ryou. Relief flooded through Bakura and he eagerly grabbed at Ryou who helped pull him to his feet and only then did he realise how terrified he had been.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

I pulled Bakura to his feet and was about to unload a whole bag full of curses. What on earth was he doing sat on the ground for everyone to see? When I first saw him huddled up I had assumed the worst and assumed him injured, I don't know what I would have done if I had found him lying here dead or dieing…

But when I had him on his feet I noticed the trembling of his hands and the relief on his face… what had happened?

"Ryou," he sighed out, "we have to go, the guards are out."

This wasn't anything I didn't know myself, I had had to stray from the instructions Malik had given as to avoid the guards already but nonetheless I just nodded and started down the corridor with Bakura who seemed pretty confident on where we were going. Neither of us mentioned the golden trinkets he had retrieved and now wore in plain sight. It was much more apparent that escaping was of utmost importance at the moment. Eventually we reached the hall leading to the waterways and firstly I noticed there was no Malik and secondly I noticed Bakura made no move to wait however he continued onwards down into the water.

"Bakura! What about Teana?"

"If she's smart, like she is, she'll be long gone Ryou. We can't wait around."

I chewed the inside of my cheek looking back and forth between the tunnel and the entrance hoping to catch a glimpse of Teana at either end but Bakura was right, she _was _smart and it was likely she had gone to protect Amunet if she new the guards were on our tail and as if on cue I heard the thudding of feet just beyond the entrance signally the guards approach.

"Ryou let's go!"

Without another second of delay I followed Bakura into the waterways and we hurried through the water awkwardly wading in large paces to lessen the sound of our approach and it was a good thing too that we were so cautious with our movements because we hadn't gotten far before we heard footfalls in the water approaching us from in front. Bakura and I shared a concerned glance before he quickly signalled for us to hide under the water. The light was dim and so we clung to the wall under water and hoped the shadows and water would mask us. There was a brief flurry of water splashing as a group of five men walked past us obviously in a hurry, dread coursed through me as I realised they must have been coming from where we had hidden Amunet. When they had defiantly passed I reached the surface and gasped for breath before turning to Bakura. "They were coming from Amunet's hiding place,"

"She'll be fine," Bakura reassured and begun to wade through the water again when suddenly a body was flying past me and into Bakura's chest.

Bakura actually yelped in surprise and fell back in the water. There was a flurry of kicking and thrashing in the water and panic rose in my throat. I went to leap forward to help Bakura until I saw a familiar brown head of hair.

"Teana get off me you bloody—"

I could hardly contain my smile of relief as I helped Teana to her feet.

"I'm so sorry," Teana said breathlessly, "I was just so relieved when I heard your voice."

Bakura just frowned deeply into the dark of the tunnel, his white bangs hanging into his face.

"What were you doing here?" I looked around, "where were you hiding?"

"I was going back to find Amunet," she begun to explain, "but I didn't get far when I heard the guards coming so I found a gap in the wall similar to the one we hid Amunet in and stayed there. I was going to stay there for longer until I heard you two."

I nodded and started walking again, "let's get Amunet and get out of here."

The other two nodded in agreement and I was surprised to find the dread I had been feeling throughout this whole mission turn into adrenaline. We had done it! We had successfully broken into the palace and escaped and by the looks of it we had escaped with two of the items. The Key and the Ring. I briefly looked over Teana but she didn't seem to have any item on her, I was a little disappointed but knew events had gone beyond our control but despite everything we weren't going away empty handed—

"Oh no."

Everything stilled. Our steps in the water halted immediately and the water went eerily quiet. I could no longer hear the breaths of my companions I was pretty sure even my heart had ceased beating in my chest.

The water was oozing red, lapping up at the sides of the dark stonewalls and against the tiny frail body that lay face down in the water's surface.

"No."

I stepped forward, my hands reaching out as if independently from my body and my knees fell into the water and collided painfully with the stone floor beneath.

"No."

I clutched at the body feeling it turn limply in my grasp, tiny hands were covered in red and it looked so wrong so _so_ wrong nothing that innocent should ever be covered in so much _red._

"A-a-a-a-…" no more words came. I couldn't speak. I couldn't fathom the red clothes that leaked like ink into the dark water; I couldn't comprehend the gaping wound on a tiny tiny chest, ribs broken like a little birdcage. My eyes were too blurry and mind too foggy it wasn't until I noticed the hair…

Once so perfect and feathery white like clouds was now red.

With blood.

So much blood.

"A-a-munet…" I was trembling all over and then like waves suddenly crashing down on me it all made sense. I knew what had happened I knew what I was holding _who I was holding._

And I screamed.

I screamed like I screamed that night when my mother and father were stolen out of our home and thrown into the fire and the walls and the water soaked it up and screamed back at me echoing down the dark halls except it came back distorted and twisted and it fuelled me to scream longer and louder and-…

I knew it was Bakura grabbing me because no one else had ever been able to grab me with equal amounts of force and compassion. He hauled me to my feet and I felt the tiny body slipping from my arms.

"NO!"

Someone was crying, someone other than me but I didn't care. For the first time ever I battled against Bakura I raged and kicked and bit at the body trying to hold me, trying to drag me away from my sister. _My dead baby sister!_

"This way it was coming from down here!"

A new voice added to the crescendo of panic and I heard Bakura spit out foul curses. Feet were splashing in the water behind us and gaining on us and we weren't moving because I was still kicking and screaming and during the panic I heard the distinctive sound of metal hitting rock then splashing into the water, but paid no attention because right now it didn't matter, nothing mattered!

"In the name of the Pharaoh and Royal guard!" suddenly Bakura was shoving me downwards "Halt!" I was being pushed under the water and through a tiny gap that was barely big enough for Bakura let alone with him trying to push me through at the same time and then there was air again and the cold night hit me and stole any breath I had managed to gasp in but it didn't matter because now I was being hauled up and over Bakura's shoulder and we were running.

Bakura, Teana and me.

_The three of us_.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

**No words today. =) read and review my faithful readers.**


	11. Dragons

**_Dragons_**

When the morning came I refused to move.

We had not been able to find our original shelter due to exhaustion and panic so once we were sure we had lost the guards among the hectic city-wide party we had merely collapsed in an alley, the three of us all holding onto each other tightly as I cried and sobbed into the night. The others had remained silent, holding me as I wailed like a mourning widow. Teana had cried too but her tears had fallen silently down her cheeks, and Bakura's grief was written all over his face but remained dry and tearless. I didn't get a second of sleep, a couple of times in the night I tried desperately to break away from my friends grasp to go back and get her. _Maybe she wasn't dead maybe we were wrong. What if she's there now, scared and alone? I have to go and get her! _

Oh but she was most certainly dead.

I had felt her tiny broken, frigid body. Seen her blood stained clothes and broken chest and when I thought about that my sobs turned into screams of anger. HOW COULD ANYONE DO THAT?! My little girl my little baby girl how could anyone break her! How could anyone even consider hurting such a fragile little thing…

And then morning came, breaking light over the city and I would not move. I wrapped my arms around Bakura's waist and dug my hands and face into Teana's clothes and refused to let them go because if I did let them go I might not get them back and I couldn't do that I couldn't loose someone else! But Bakura was persistent, he said we needed food and although he didn't say it I was sure he wanted to get out of the city, I think we all did.

Our plan had failed in so many ways, not only had we lost a very valuable treasure we had only succeeded in stealing one Millennium Item because somehow along the way I must of dropped the key. I knew Bakura was furious with me but he did not let it show.

Eventually Bakura and Teana combined forces to get me on my feet and both tried to wrap them arms around me for both physical and moral support but in fit of immaturity I shoved them off. If I couldn't have them _my _way I didn't want them at all right now. So instead I walked with my arms folded and shoulders hunched in between them both and despite my rudeness and childishness they both remained close to me on either side as if their mere being there could protect me from the sadness and heart wrenching guilt that assaulted me.

The market place had a pleasant vibe, many of the patrons were still drunk or tipsy from their night long party and were now with family and friends stocking up on food to continue their celebration and throughout all the city there seemed to be a pleasant hum of contentment apart from our own bubble of desperation. We walked together tightly knit trying to avoid any close contact or needless conversation with the other market goers and with much too much effort we finally made it to a store selling cooked fish. Bakura dug his hand into one of our small coin purses and bought three large fishes and as the man was wrapping up our purchase Teana went suddenly ridged.

Bakura noticed and reached around me to pat her shoulder, "what's wrong?"

Teana shook her head and waved her hand, "nothing, nothing I'll tell you later." Her expression was unreadable and I found myself unable to care. Instead I stood observing my hands. The bandage on my bad hand was peeled and disgusting having not been changed in so long, I noticed there was also a yellow tint to the hem of the cloth and knew that by now the many lashings were infected but due to my current state of numbness I dropped my hands to my side without telling Teana or Bakura.

Once we had our fish we walked away from the bustle of the market and went to find somewhere to sit and eat the fish while it was still warm, we got many invites from welcoming families and groups of parties but Teana pleasantly declined for us and eventually we found somewhere solitary to eat our fish in peace, however once we had the fish open on our laps it seemed our appetite evaded us all.

Bakura made a real effort to eat, knowing he'd need his energy later, however Teana could barely force down more than two mouth falls and I didn't even try.

Bakura sighed and dropped the remains of his fish on the floor bitterly, "well that was a waste of money."

"I didn't _ask _for you to buy me anything." I bit back shoving my untouched food onto the floor causing Bakura to glare.

"You don't have to be so pathetic. We're all sad!"

I stared dumbstruck at him for a second, "shut up." How could he be so insensitive? How could he even compare how he felt to how I felt right now? I had lost my very last family member! My little innocent sister who I was meant to protect… "You have no idea…"

"Don't I?" in that second Bakura's eyes and mine met and I felt guilt settle deep into my stomach… of course he understood. He had already lost his siblings. Feeling far to overwhelmed in sadness and guilt I just groaned and put my face in my hands and felt fresh tears spilling onto my palms, I heard Bakura sigh in exasperation however he still moved closer to me to place a reassuring arm around my shoulders.

We sat in silence like that for sometime, until the forgotten fish went cold.

"I heard something in the market," Teana finally spoke up but neither myself nor Bakura made any move to acknowledge her. "Some guy was talking about a demon girl… who takes the form of a dragon. A _white _dragon."

That however got our attention.

Bakura's head snapped up, "you don't think…"

Teana nodded once and continued, "At the time I didn't think anything of it, until I heard another guy say something similar while you were buying fish and then when we were walking back I heard a woman warning her children. It seems the whole city knows about the demon girl with white hair…"

It was almost cruel how fate snatched away one of us so easily then dropped another one of our long lost companions on our footstep again. My emotions rolled around in my stomach unable to decide on one, tears still fell down my cheeks but now some of the bitterness was laced with hope.

"Kisara…"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oo

It was quickly decided that we couldn't leave the city knowing Kisara might be near so again we sought out shelter and stayed the night. We tried to get some rest because in the morning we decided to search the vast city for information or sight of our long lost friend, however it soon became clear the three of us were restless. Wracked with emotions of sadness, grief, excitement and hope all mixed together in a stomach churning mixture it was clear none of us were going to sleep well tonight so instead we sat up into the early ours of the morning reminiscing. Talking about Amunet and Kisara and our travels together recent and old and wondering if Kisara would look any different and also delving into deeper untouched memories. We talked about Bakura's older sister, a harsh looking young woman who had a small baby boy which never seemed to leave her sight, always cradled in her arms, and about Teana's brothers, two playful young boys who were always up to mischief. We laughed and reminisced about these people as if they hadn't all been tragically killed and for a moment I was just happy to live in the memories of those I loved but when I looked over to Bakura I saw something dark there…

He sat there with this furious expression as Teana was retelling a story about her father and Bakura's mother, his eyes were distant and his hand was idly playing with the shape of the ring that now hung around his neck.

I knew how he felt; angry with those who had taken those we cherished, but I had never seen him look so dark. In that moment I believed he could do it. I believed if he wanted he could kill the Pharaoh and all those who had dared take anything away from us… and that notion frightened me so just as the sun was dawning I rolled over and fell asleep, trying to cleanse my thoughts of any more bloodshed.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Our search was fruitless. We searched from early morning till late at night and all we got was a mismatch of stories about the demon girl. Some said the girl was a nuisance who burnt crops and endangered the cities people, others said she was a humble guardian who served the weak and punished the wicked some even compared her to a god. One small boy was particularly enthusiastic. He was a small street kid with untameable black hair wearing a sackcloth tunic and nothing on his feet. "She's beautiful!" he exclaimed for the third time in his description of the dragon girl, "she saved me and my brother from these men one time. She's so strong some people say she's even stronger than the Pharaoh's gods!" the small boy's older brother rolled his eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Ignore my brother he's been obsessed with the demon girl ever since he saw her."

"She's not a demon!" he cried, "she's a dragon, a beautiful dragon made of light. She's not bad, don't listen to what the others say," however the boy's brother just scoffed and walked off to join the rest of the street kids.

Teana, Bakura and myself all shared a look before nodding and thanking the boys for their information.

"Hey kid," Bakura turned one last time before we left, "what's your name?"

The small dark haired boy blinked then patted himself proudly on the chest, "my name is Moki!"

Bakura nodded and grinned, "alright Moki, stay safe."

Moki grinned back happily then saluted Bakura once and ran off to join his friends.

"Well wasn't he a beacon of information." Teana chuckled.

I just grunted and rubbed my temples; we had no more information than before but now I was sporting a newly found headache, I was beginning to wish I had gotten more sleep the night before.

"Now what?" Bakura scratched the back of his neck then followed the thread around his neck until he was playing with the metal of the Millennium Ring again, a habit he had picked up very fast.

"I wish you wouldn't wear that in public," Teana frowned, readjusting Bakura's clothes so they hid the ring at least a little more, "you're going to get us arrested!"

Bakura just rolled his eyes and playfully pulled his hood down to reveal his shock of white hair and stuck out his tongue, "Teana there is plenty more things that make us stand out."

Teana screeched and yanked his hood back over his head then started to punch him in the chest and arms, "don't you care?" at first her frail attempts seemed like their normal banter but it soon became obvious her scolding was much more hysterical than usual, "Do you want to die? DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE US?" Bakura grabbed her tiny fists to stop the insistent pounding on his chest.

"Teana stop it!" he easily over powered her and brought her arms down to her side but by now she was crying.

"I-I wont! I wont lose y-you, I love you both s-sooo much," she sobbed and shook herself out of Bakura's hold to burry herself into his chest where she just stayed and cried.

I stood awkwardly to the side as Bakura patted her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. I was sure I should have joined in, to have wrapped my arms around her and either joined in on the tears or comforted her like always but I was too caught up in all my own misery, I didn't feel like comforting someone else.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Teana couldn't sleep, again. Ryou had fallen asleep as soon as his head touched the blankets and even though Bakura had tried to fight off the drowsiness he was soon slumped up against the wall, snoring away.

Teana watched with a melancholy smile as her two companions were lost to the dreaming world, she hoped their dreams were pleasant they deserved at least that. Eventually Teana became so restless she couldn't stand it anymore so she gathered up her scarf, the one Bakura had given her all so long ago, and walked out into the frigid night air.

She took a walk around the city and was amazed to see even as late, or early, as this small groups or loners still wandered the streets. She only walked down familiar roads and had no intention to wander too far, but soon the sunless night was taking its toll on her and she begun to shiver and she figured she might as well go back to where she was at least warm. She turned on her heel to head back to her companions when something caught her eye. Something bright, something so white it seemed to glow, like a ghost on her peripheral vision. She snapped her head around to see the retreating form walking down a narrow gap between two houses, the light colour caught and bathed in the moonlight for a second before she disappeared under the shade of towering palms that hung over a garden wall.

"Wait!"

Teana cried and suddenly found herself running towards the figure, she ran so fast she didn't see the figure turn towards her and suddenly she collided with the other form.

"Oopf!"

Teana gasped for air as the other persons knee had collided just under he ribcage, and sat on all fours over the other form, one hand grabbing her injured torso, she had nearly gotten her breath back when suddenly arms were wrapped around her and pulling her down for a rib crushing hug, winding her again. Teana was only momentarily stunned and soon enough begun to hug the other figure back.

"Teana, oh by the gods it's really you!"

Teana tried to speak but found herself crying, this time tears of joy, "Kisara I can't believe you're ok!"

Eventually the girls broke from their embrace and helped each other to their feet. Kisara put a dainty hand on her long lost companion's arm and smiled a familiar smile, "come, we have so much to talk about."

Teana obediently followed her old friend who led her up onto the flat roof of a home, where potted plants were stored. Teana couldn't take her eyes off her old friend. She had grown into a beautiful young woman, as expected, her legs were long and as pale as the day Teana had first seen her, and her rounded childish features had flattened out into a mature and beautiful mask, much like her mothers had been.

"Kisara, what happened? How have you come to be here?"

Kisara smiled, "an amazing thing happened."

Kisara begun to share her story, about how the men who had kidnapped her had kept her in a cage and intended to sell her along their travels, and how she had cried out for help every night she was with them until one evening, beyond all possibility a young boy had come to her rescue. He had given her a horse and told her to run free, and she had every intention of doing so but she hadn't gotten far when she saw the flames on the horizon.

"I took the horse back, I couldn't leave knowing the boy who rescued me could be in danger. They had set the village on fire, the men who had kidnapped me, like the one where we got separated and it was just so…familiar. I thought of…_that night. _In Kul Elna and I was overcome with sadness and this rage that I can't believe came from me and…"

That was the first night the white dragon had been unleashed, it had slaughtered the men who kidnapped her and brushed away the flames with its wings but the people did not understand and so they chased her away, she took the horse the boy had given her and she continued to run for freedom, hoping to find her friends along the way but she never did.

"I decided to find him," Kisara was looking up at the moon in the cloudless sky, "the boy who saved me. I felt this compelling need to be near him, his name is Seto."

Teana placed a hand on her friends, "we never stopped looking for you,"

"I know," she smiled, "I didn't think you ever would but… I can't come back with you now."

Teana's eyes grew wide, "why not?"

"I need to find this boy, something about him… it's my destiny. A calling I cannot understand, I'm sure it is straight form the gods. I'm sorry Teana and I'm so glad I got to see you again, to know you're ok but I cannot go back. This is my purpose."

Teana rubbed away the tears that were forming in her eyes and nodded, she didn't understand Kisara's calling but she respected her decision to follow it.

The two girls decided not to tell the boys about their reencounter but rather kept it between themselves. For the rest of the night they sat and caught up on past tales and adventures and they even spared a moment to mourn the loss of little Amunet. And finally when the sun rose and broke over the city the girls embraced and said their final goodbye, a feeling they both shared that they would never meet again.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

**And thus we say goodbye to Kisara, unless you actually go and watch the show where you'll see her finding her beloved Seto~**

**Some more familiar faces, did you catch them?**

**Bakura's older sister is the human form of Dark Necrophear, I know some people have done fics with it being his mother or lover but I like the idea of him having an older sister so slipped that in there. As for Teana's brothers I did have them in mind as Joey and Tristan XD but wasn't so sure by the end of writing this chapter.**

**Next: Moki is the Egyptian incarnate of Mokuba Kaiba! If you've watched the Japanese version you'll know that when Kaiba is watching the fight between Zorc/Bakura and Atem he sees two boys (who look very similar to himself and Mokuba) and he tries to protect them but then Zorc kills them in fire, I thought the idea of Bakura having met Moki before this was a sad little detail and just shoved it in their for fun.**

**Annnnd I did write the exact moment the Millennium Key went missing in the previous chapter, did you catch it?**

**Sorry for not getting back to replies and for this being delayed, been really busy! But thank you all so much!**


	12. Sleep

**_Sleep_**

For some reason shortly after our search for Kisara Teana became unenthused by the idea, Bakura reasoned it was the city bringing her down and the memory of Amunet so he made the final decision for us to leave the city. He said maybe one day we'll return but for now we all needed to leave and be out of the hustle and bustle of city life and away from the memory of Amunet. I personally didn't see how leaving a mere city could help me forget about my precious little sister but I agreed none the less and we started heading north, away from the city, the Pharaoh and the rest of the Millennium items.

We camped in the open on the first night, under the stars on the comfort of sand, much like we used to. Teana slept much easier tonight and I too found quick solace in sleep but that was until a fitful Bakura woke me.

There was a time when Bakura would stay up all night if it meant keeping watch over us but I noticed recently he had been falling asleep much easier, even when he tried restlessly to stay awake. However for some reason lately sleep claimed him all too easily, I briefly thought this as I awoke and saw the curled up figure of Bakura besides me until I realised it was his mumbling that had woken me. I rubbed my eyes to clear them of sleep and then reached out to wake my friend.

"Bakura, wake up you're having a bad dream." My hand had barely grazed his arm when Bakura suddenly sat up right and his mumbling ceased. He sat with his back dead straight and his eyes now open staring straight ahead but seemingly unseeing. The sudden movement startled me and I fell back, using my hands to catch myself to avoid landing flat on my back, "…Bakura?"

"_You dropped it you stupid boy!" _Bakura's gazed snapped round to me yet his eyes were still flat and unfocused and his voice was odd, deep and throaty as if he badly needed to cough.

"W-what? Bakura… are you still asleep?"

"_GO BACK GO BACK WE MUST GET THEM"_

The sudden shouting startled me again and this time Teana awoke with a start.

"What's going on?" she peered into the darkness, alarm in her voice but I didn't have time to answer because Bakura was on his feet now and storming away, his movements stiff and awkward and kicking up sand as he went into the blinding darkness of the desert.

"Bakura wait!" I yelled and jumped to my feet chasing after him.

"_We must get them all we must take the power we must we must we must we will we will kill them all we will take the power we WILL WE WILL WE WILL! WE CAN SO WE MUST. "_

As I finally reached Bakura I felt my patience run out and I just tackled him down into the sand throwing all of my weight onto his larger form using his awkward walking to over balance him and send us both plummeting into the sand. As we hit the ground Bakura let out a grunt and immediately started fighting me off but soon enough Teana was there also holding his legs down as I straddled his chest and tried to grab his arms and when I finally had a hold of his flailing form he suddenly went limp.

"I-is he ok?" Teana asked in panic at the sudden stillness.

I leaned in close to my friend's face and released one of his wrists to gently touch his face and tilt it side-to-side, "I… I think he's sleeping."

"Sleeping?!"

"He must have been sleep walking or something," I concluded but the doubt was clear in my own voice, what on earth had just happened was beyond weird. "Hey Bakura, wake up."

"Are you sure we want him awake again?"

"Ugh… what… Ryou why… why are you on top of me? Teana what's… going on?"

I sighed in relief as Bakura's eyes opened bright and focused and his voice clear, albeit a little sleepy.

"You tell me!" Teana let go of Bakura's legs to come and sit besides me.

"Are you feeling alright?" I asked and I was answered with a raised eyebrow.

"Apart from you sitting on me… I feel fine."

I rolled my eyes then shifted to the side, off of his chest, allowing him to sit up, "you defiantly seem back to normal."

"Back to normal? What are you on about? What happened?"

"You were having a nightmare and when I tried to wake you, you started yelling and running off."

Bakura looked between Teana and me as if to find any hint of a lie or practical joke but when he found none he threw his head back and laughed.

"It's not funny! You scared the life out of me!"

"There must have been something weird with that fish," Bakura chuckled.

"Glad someone can laugh about it." I huffed and made my way back over to my makeshift bed. Normally I would have taken the time to laugh off the incident and to calm Teana's nerves but once again I found my capability for caring null and void. Instead I just curled in on myself and forced myself to sleep.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooo

The next day we spent travelling and eventually we made it to the shaded bank of the Nile once more. Teana quickly disappeared to go bathe whereas Bakura and me sat idly on the side, Bakura chewing one of the bread buns we had taken from the city.

For some time I watched the rippling changing current of the Nile and admired how it caught and danced with the sun's rays and I found myself thinking how I'd quite like to be buried in the water, when I died. Pharaohs and rulers were berried with all their riches and prized possessions but I had neither of these things other than the jade dagger Bakura had given me and the clothes off my back I really had nothing at all but this river held pleasant memories and I think I'd like to stay with them: my memories. But these thoughts soon reminded me of Amunet and her tiny body face down in the water ways of the palace… was she still there? Would she stay there? Was that to be her eternal resting place? Tainting the very water the Pharaoh drank? Or had they found and moved her? Burned her with the rest of the waste? Suddenly my stomach lurched and I jumped forward dangling my head over the water and gripping my sides.

Bakura jumped, "woah! Are you ok?"

I nodded and moaned through gritted teeth trying to keep the contents of my stomach down but the thing was there wasn't anything _in _my stomach to come up, all I would wretch up would be my own bile.

Bakura sympathetically patted my shoulder until the sudden nausea died down and I was able to sit back. "What happened? Are you not feeling well?"

I shook my head, "It's nothing really…" I made the mistake of waving my hand to dismiss the topic but Bakura's keen eyes grabbed at my wrist.

"Shit! Ryou when was the last time you cleaned this thing?"

He had caught my injured hand, all covered in tattered and yellowed cloth with dried flecks or blood and grime stuck on my immobile fingers.

"It hasn't exactly been the top of my priorities." I tried to snatch my hand back but Bakura's grip was tight and much stronger than my own so I only succeeded in straining my wrist. Bakura glared at me, wrinkling his own scar, which had healed tremendously in the last week or so now only leaving a clean and clear shape across his face, unlike my own tattered flesh.

Bakura begun to undo the haphazard dressing and soon my infected hand was out in the air, I was surprised to see there was still flesh blood gleaming on the surface.

"Can you move it?"

"Not the fingers," I confessed knowing there was no point to lying. "It's not going to heal… is it?"

Bakura inspected the hand as if his diagnosis was as valued as that of a top healer, "I don't think so… how have you been getting on?"

"Fairly easy… it helps that I can't feel it most of the time."

Bakura heaved a sigh and opened his mouth to complain some more but I however was already on my feet heading off to clean my wounds, in privet.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

That night Bakura woke me again. He was worse tonight, what had woken me wasn't mere mumblings but he was actually thrashing about.

"Again?" Teana groaned rubbing her eyes, weary from sleep, "wasn't he keeping watch?"

I however was more concerned with waking him and calming him without repeating last night's events. I knelt over him and tried to pin him with my forearms and Teana was crawling awkwardly in the dark to come to my aid when suddenly I was thrown back with so much sudden force I couldn't catch myself and ended flat on my back, my legs bent awkwardly underneath me. I struggled to sit back up when big hands grabbed my shoulders and kept me pinned.

_"Doesn't need you, so weak so weak…" _the voice was the same as before, thick and raspy but this time it was quiet and whispered close to my neck and in the dark I panicked, I thought for a second it was someone other than Bakura holding me down.

"_He knows he doesn't need you why would he need you? So weak so weak he can do it alone…"_

I should have been fighting against him but my brain was too busy running through the words that were being hissed into my face. Who doesn't need me? Need me to do what? I was so confused and caught off guard I didn't realise as one hand left my shoulder and trailed down my bare arm, tickling the flesh until it grazed the numb dead skin and then suddenly it pressed and gripped as nails dug hard into the already broken skin and suddenly my hand didn't feel numb at all.

I screamed at the sudden pain, as fingers pried at the infected flesh and I started flailing and wriggled my other hand free to push at his face. Teana at some point had latched herself onto Bakura's back and was trying to pry him off of me and then suddenly much like before everything just stopped.

Bakura suddenly dropped on top of me, his strength apparently sapped from his body and his grip on my hand loosened also. Teana yelped as she was dragged down with his body and I let out a strangled gasp as the air was squeezed from my body.

"Ugh, sorry, sorry!" Teana squeaked rolling off and trying to drag Bakura with her who was now seemingly unconscious. With a few of my own shoves we succeeded in rolling Bakura onto his back. I sat up and cradled my injured hand close to my chest, the blood that had been resting neatly on the surface before was now seeping through the rag and running down my wrist.

"Are you ok?" Teana reached out for me but I shuffled back, away from her grasp.

"I'm fine."

"Ugh …my head is killing me." Bakura's voice groaned somewhere in the dark, "why are you guys awake?"

Teana's eyes held mine for a moment longer before I turned away, using the veil of white bangs to hide my face. She sighed and ran her hand through her own hair, "It's nothing Bakura, go back to sleep."

We let it rest until morning, all of us tried to go back to sleep but it was clear none of us were going to so instead we lay in silence until the sun rose and then we got a particularly early start on our travels.

We travelled in awkward silence for quite some time, Bakura would often attempt to start conversation but it usually died out quite quickly and I soon noticed his confused and somewhat hurt expression.

"What is up with you two?" Bakura stopped in his tracks cross his arms over his chest.

"Nothing, let's keep going it's almost noon," I didn't stop walking as I spoke however Teana halted after a few more strides acting as a bridge between me and Bakura.

"Bakura, are you having nightmares?" she suddenly asked out of the blue and with groan I turned around to face the other two.

"Nightmares? No… I haven't really been dreaming at all lately…" but even as he said the words his face changed and he grabbed his forehead, "ah… no. That's not right…"

"So you _have _been having nightmares?" she pressed on.

"I… yeah. Something about home… about Kul Elna."

I was a little startled if I'm honest. Bakura rarely spoke openly about Kul Elna nowadays unless in a vicious or revengeful way I hadn't heard him call it 'home' since we were children.

"You hurt Ryou last night,"

"Teana!"

"I… I what?"

"You hurt his hand, after shoving him on the floor. You said something to him but I didn't hear and Ryou wont tell me."

I instinctively pulled my injured hand close to my chest again and found a spike of anxiety run through me when Bakura's eyes caught mine, this time however I found myself unable to turn away.

"Why the hell wouldn't you tell me something like that? What is wrong with you both?! We never keep secrets!" Bakura's normal temper was back I was momentarily surprised to realise during the day Bakura has been very even tempered as of late.

Teana and I remained silent, we hadn't really discussed not talking about it but it wasn't something one could drop into casual conversation. After a minuet or so of silence Bakura stormed forward, across the bridge Teana had created and grabbed my shoulders and for the first time ever I flinched when Bakura touched me. The motion didn't go unnoticed and the distraught look that covered Bakura's face pained me worse than my hand ever could.

"Gods Ryou what did I say to you…"

I looked down, finally able to break contact, "You said you didn't need me," I begun and found my voice very quiet so I licked my lips and tried again, "that I was weak, that you could do it on your own…"  
Bakura stared down at me and unleashed my shoulders, "Damnit Ryou surely you know that's not true? I couldn't do anything without you…" he chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "even if I wanted to."

There was something odd about his words; it felt similar to when I had left Amunet in the gap in the wall down in the waterways, something like foreshadowing…

Bakura huffed and ran his hand down his neck and down the cord of the ring until it landed on the cool metal, in that same habit he had picked up recently and then suddenly I heard Teana gasp.

"That's it! The ring!"

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooo

**_No new faces this time, and I don't really have any more planned but we'll see how that goes. (as I'm writing this now the fic is incomplete as you are reading it, it has been posted on ff. net and therefore it is finished!)_**

**_So yeah don't wanna say too much and give anything away before next chapter so thanks again for reading! _**

**_Not so much going on in the review section of this fic anymore, have I taken it down a route people aren't interested in? I haven't heard much since Amunet's death and would really love to know why…_**

**_Thank you if you are still reading xx_**


	13. Ring

_Ring_

_Bakura huffed and ran his hand down his neck and down the cord of the ring until it landed on the cool metal, in that same habit he had picked up recently and then suddenly I heard Teana gasp._

_"That's it! The ring!"_

_oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooo_

"The ring must be what's causing all this, causing you to act so strangely," Teana was suddenly enthused by this idea as if everything suddenly made sense to her.

"The ring?" Bakura gripped the edge of the ring with both hands and brought it to eye level then seemed to rethink the idea and jerked it back, "Actually now that you mention it that would explain a lot…."

"Then take it off," I said as if it was obvious and Bakura nodded quickly and lifted the cord up and over his head but as he did so he grimaced.

"Are you ok?" Teana asked and rested a hand on his arm.

"Yeah I just… ow…" Bakura's brow furrowed and the forming scar on his cheek crinkled. He was still wearing his outer clothes from the city, the ones with a hood that hid the majority of his body in a mass of shapeless material but right then he was pawing at it and pulling it off.

"What are you doing?!" Teana yelped as Bakura begun to strip.

"It's really hot! Like it's burning!" Bakura finally stripped to his bare chest and my mouth fell open at the sight of the five small cuts imbedded in Bakura's chest, now bleeding fresh blood.

"W-when did that happen?"

"I don't know, I don't remember it happening," Bakura's eyes peeled away from his own chest to stare at us, "actually I don't remember a lot happening lately."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I keep getting memory lapses. Not just at night when you guys have noticed but sometimes I just find myself missing little bits of conversation…"

"The ring was obviously taking its toll on you," I supplied, "gods knows how, or why."

Teana patted her chin, "also have you noticed how calm he's been lately?"

"Yes actually I have, he hasn't been nearly as temperamental."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It's almost like the ring was taking that from you, almost like it was feeding off of your anger."

Bakura chuckled lightly, "you got all that from a couple of gaps in my memory?"

"Well it's true! Think about it… you're a very angry person Bakura! It doesn't make you bad you just are, and you have good reason. And like Malik said the items are dark and evil things. Wouldn't it make sense that they thrive off of negative energy?"

Bakura snorted, "That would make sense as to why the Pharaoh keeps his so close. It's probably brimming with power!"

"We have to get rid of it," I finally pointed out the obvious, "there's no way we can keep it now."  
Teana nodded in agreement and after a moment of bitter contemplation Bakura nodded too.

"But how? Do we just leave it in the desert?" Teana asked but Bakura shook his head.

"No. It can't be abandoned or thrown away. It will just come back the ring must always have an owner." Suddenly Bakura shoved it into Teana's hands, "you have to take it."  
"What?! Why me?"

"Because it thrives off of negative energy. We've proved I can't handle it and Ryou…" he trailed off but I nodded my head.

"I'm too caught up in my own misery, over Amunet." I finished for him.

"I'm sad too…" she started lamely.

"Not as sad as Ryou."

Resigned Teana took the ring in her hands and placed the cord around her neck and we started to discuss our plan of action.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo

We figured the ring must be given away, stolen or bought. For reasons we decided not to dwell on Bakura was certain that somehow the ring would find its way to him (or now Teana) if we just left it in the desert so we soon found a town and decided we would offer it up at a trade stall, all we hoped was that no one would recognise it and shun it as stolen goods.

"So how much do ya wan fer it?" a toothless man garbled out as Bakura attempted his best salesmen act with Teana by his side gripping the ring nervously.

"For you?" Bakura tapped his chin in fake contemplation, "two silver."

The man barked out a laugh, "silver fer gold? Nope. It's gotta be a fake!"

Bakura shook his hands in protest, "alright! One gold piece"

"Good try sonny, it aint worth naught this piece of tin," and with that he hobbled away.

"reeeeeal smooth." I interjected once the guy was out of hearing range.

"Shut it. I'd like to see you do better." Bakura snapped and with that I looped my arm through Teana's own and whisked her towards another patron, a woman patron to be exact.

"uhm m'am…" I pulled my hood tight around my face, hiding my white hair and pulling my shoulders upwards to exaggerate my smaller frame, "you don't happen to have a few gold pieces in exchange for a piece of old jewellery do you?"

The woman, a plump motherly looking hen, turned in time to see Teana raising the ring up between two shaking palms.

"Oh dears!" she suddenly fussed, "I'm afraid I don't,"

"That's ok," I smiled weakly, "do you by chance have any bread or food that we may trade, we're really quite hungry."

The woman's maternal instinct kicked in almost instantly and she seemed to make up her mind almost as fast, "bread for gold? I wont have it! Come with me dears I know someone who will buy your necklace for a good amount, come, come!" she started to usher us away, and Bakura followed close by. We were soon whisked past the stalls towards a small building with a curtain entrace. We were whisked through, before we could protest, leaving Bakura outside. The den was small and dark, padded with tapestries and elaborate wall hangings and as soon as we stepped through the threshold we were assaulted by the smell and smoke of hookah.

"Panhsi!" the woman cooed into the fog, "I have some traders for you," the shuffled us forward into the den until we were staring down at a man with his legs crossed and a pipe in hand. In one motion he took a long inhale of his pipe and signalled for us to sit, so we did so obediently.

"What do you have for me?"

Teana looked to me nervously before producing the ring, which the man, Panhsi, took out of her grasp effortlessly. He eyed the object thoroughly, even chewed on one of the dangling spikes then chuckled. "I'll take it."

Our faces lit up but we knew we had to play the part of traders or they would get suspicious of our eagerness to part with the item, "for how much?"

The man chuckled again and this time I heard the dark undertones, "you will get nothing other than a free pass to leave the town before I set the authorities on you." He grinned a wide grin, "do we have a deal, little thieves?"

Teana was suddenly alert and jumped to her feet, nodding and bowing and aiming to leave as quickly as possible however I faltered.

"And what do you aim to do with it?" Panhsi raised one brushy eyebrow at my question.

"I intend to give it back to the Pharaoh and his priests and await my award."

I nodded quickly then and stood to follow Teana, not voicing my opinion of how utterly stupid that idea was and that when he went strolling up to the palace with ring in hand he'd probably be killed on the spot, I did however bow politely and exit quickly.

Once we were outside we found Bakura was waiting for us, leant against a wall.

"Well how much did you get?"  
"Nothing," I admitted deflated and Teana bristled besides me.

"We didn't get 'nothing' we got a pass to leave this town without any trouble. They knew what the ring was and that we had stolen it so let's get out of here."

Bakura seemed to twitch at the notion we had given away something so precious for practically nothing in return but heeded the warning and we left the town, as promised.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o

The second the ring was gone from our lives we resumed some sort of normal routine, moving from town to town, pick pocketing and stealing, finding shelter and squatting. However life didn't return to how it was, we wore our scars both physical and emotional out in the open for the world to see. We grieved for Amunet regularly until Teana came up with the idea of finding somewhere to lie to rest Amunet's memory. The three of us were pretty much completely uneducated so we didn't really know what we were doing with funeral rituals but we all decided to find a nice spot by the Nile, in the shade, where we berried three possessions, one each, for Amunet to take with her in the after life. I left my dagger, to protect her, Teana left her scarf to keep her warm and Bakura left one of his many stolen necklaces for her to trade in the afterlife.

"Don't be stupid people don't _trade _in the afterlife!" Teana had scolded.

"You're talking as if there even is a real after life Teana!" Bakura had bitten back.

And for a while that seemed like that was that. That life would return to normal or at least as normal as we could hope but nearly every single night as I lay my head down to sleep I couldn't help but feel unrest. Something was not settled yet, it had been woken and it would not sleep until it was satisfied.

I felt like we hadn't heard of the last of the Millennium items.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o

**_So historically inaccurate oh god…_**

**_But yeah this is a YUGIOH FANFICTION accuracy is not the height of importance XD _**

**_Hope you folks enjoyed reading again hopefully you picked up on the parallels of Bakura's 'possession' and Ryou Bakura's possession in season zero (if you didn't doesn't really matter~)_**

**_Now excuse me while I lay down my own little piece of head cannon that might help you understand this fic a wee bit._**

**_Right so I believe Thief King Bakura was a normal guy who was pretty fucked up and pretty damned angry about having his whole village slaughtered and wanted some kind of revenge on the Pharaoh (whether or not that involved blood shed, I dunno) and I believe that Zorc is a separate entity who simply fuelled TKB with power and supplied the means for him to get his revenge in a way that benefited both himself and TKB however that obviously went tits up and we'll never know exactly what happened in the original timeline when Bakura/Zorc and Atem first face off but we do know something happened to seal Bakura/Zorc into the Millennium ring (and Atem into the puzzle) and I believe the Bakura or 'Yami Bakura' we see throughout yugioh is an infusion of them both. Not quite all human but not quite all Zorc, with the memories and emotions of his past but with the drive and power of a Dark God. Man this went on… but basically what I wanted to get at is that I believe TKB was possessed and used as a host as much as Ryou Bakura was initially however unlike Ryou Bakura TKB eventually submitted and worked with Zorc until it all went wrong and they ended up being one and the same._**

**_End of ramble! Only a few more chapters to go don't let this mini essay put you off!_**

**_I kind of want this finished before the new year so updates will be quick!_**

**_Thanks again for reading x_**


	14. Infections

**_Infections_**

Somewhere along the way I lost two of my fingernails. At first I was disgusted and scared, the skin surrounding where the nails had been looked deep and bruised but I knew they weren't because the 'bruised' like flesh had only recently started, long after the initial wound had happened.

I hid the nails from Bakura and Teana and wrapped my hand up in a new clean bandage and kept it hidden like that for some time, but it soon became clear to the others I wasn't fit to pickpocket anymore due to only having one skilled hand. So Bakura picked up my slack and more often or not I was left alone in whatever shelter we had found or made, left alone to sulk and brood. My very first worries about my hand were coming to life and I didn't know how to tell my friends. I knew it was badly infected now and even when I cleaned it nothing would wash away the yellow, turning black, colour of my skin.

I was going to loose my hand one way or another. All that was left was to decide whether or not I would let the infection take its toll or if I would cut it off myself to avoid further infection in my own body or even my friends.

The idea of loosing my hand made me feel sick and forced to me to stay quiet about my concerns. Maybe if I forgot about it, it would go away on its own.

But every time I was left alone I couldn't help but peek under the bandages to find the worsening state of my hand and the gnawing worry increased as the clock ticked down and my time ran out.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

It was when Teana fell sick did I realise it was too late. She had begun to run a fever, Although she had managed to fight through it for some days it soon became too much and she decided against going out with Bakura that day and opted to stay with me. She said she would take a quick nap but she was still asleep when Bakura returned with food and she refused to eat with us saying she still felt tired and needed to sleep some more. So we left her to herself while me and Bakura caught up on the goings on of our days, which were very uneventful, and then went to sleep ourselves.

Since Bakura got rid of the ring his sleeping habits had returned to usual where he would stay awake most of the night, watching over us, and then only partake in a very light sleep in the very dead of night before waking up very early morning.

I awoke the next day to find Bakura, as expected, awake. However, he was kneeling beside Teana with a concerned look and a hand rested against her cheek.

"She's burning up," he said as he tugged the blankets off of her sweating form.

I scurried over and placed my own hand against her forehead to confirm that her fever had indeed increased, and a thin layer of sweat covered her naked flesh and seeped into her clothes.

"We'll go to the market today," I suggested, "and find some medicine."

Bakura nodded and immediately got ready to leave.

He insisted he go alone and that I stay and look after Teana and I didn't resist. I stayed by her side but was sure not to touch her, other than checking her fever I felt that it was best to refrain from contact. I didn't really known anything about illness or infection but only one look at my hand told me it wasn't good for anyone to be near, let alone an ill person.

Bakura returned after an hour or so with a drink a medicine lady said would help with the fever, but had asked to see Teana herself.

"She said there was only a limited amount she could offer without seeing Teana for herself," Bakura explained as Teana nervously sipped the drink, "but I didn't trust her. I didn't want to bring her back here,"

I nodded and patted Teana's back as she finished the drink, "how was that?"

"Disgusting," She said before flopping back onto the bed we had made using all of our blankets and a few stolen items of clothes. "I need to sleep again," she really did sound exhausted.

"Are you hungry yet?" I asked hopefully, but she just whined and turned onto her side, her back to Bakura and me.

"No _mother _I'm not hungry,"

Bakura chuckled, "nice to know she's as bitchy as ever,"

Teana weakly and blindly kicked out in hopes off hitting Bakura but he easily dodged the ill attempt, "Calm now Teana you don't want to extort yourself, you need your rest~"

I rolled my eyes at the normal back and forth between my companions, and found myself smiling at the two. However, as soon as I recognised the familiar content feeling I brushed it off. Nothing good ever came from feeling secure, nothing was permanent and I of all people had learned that.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

"We should pray,"

Teana had worsened, she was constantly sleeping and in the brief moments of wakefulness she was delirious and confused often asking where Amunet and Kisara were and sometimes even asking for her family. She shivered and complained about the cold but to the touch she was constantly burning up and sweating. It had come to the point where we were feeling hopeless, our shelter was not the best but we were in no position to be moving Teana and the healing woman had upped the price of Teana's medicine once she found out we would be reoccurring customers: we had become desperate.

Bakura eyed me cynically for a moment before he bowed his head and nodded. I too bowed my head and begun to recite the only prayer I knew, the prayer my mother had taught me as a child, for Kul Elna was not a religious place. We were separate from worship of the gods or Pharaoh however my mother made sure I knew this one prayer:

"O my mother Nut, spread yourself over me, so that I may be placed among the imperishable stars and may never die."

The prayer to pray, when I feared death.

oooooooooooooooooooooo

"I think I would have liked to know him…"

The rare sound of Teana's voice startled me out of my nodding sleep.

"Know who?" Bakura asked leaning over to replace the rag on her head.

"The prince… the pharaoh's son…" she continued and I caught the slight frown that passed on Bakura's face.

"Really? Why?"

"He must be so lonely… I think he would have … appreciated some friends,"

Bakura sighed and lent away from Teana, "I'm sure the almighty prince doesn't need friends,"

Teana chuckled, her eyes rolling to the side looking much less lucid again and for a moment I thought we had lost her to sleep and delusion again.

"Don't be stupid… everyone needs friends," She whined and winced as if in pain before finishing, "If I ever get the chance… I'd be his friend,"

Bakura just looked up at the ceiling of our small shelter shaking his head, "well you'd be on your own there, Teana,"

"No," I finally interjected, "I'd like to trying being his friend too."

oooooooooooooooooooooo

Teana had started coughing and every time the fits consumed her she would whine and flail complaining about pain in her joints. "My arms my arms they're not mine…"

Right now however she had fallen into a fitful sleep, tossing and turning in the sheets. Her eyes were closed tight and her small mouth was open releasing ragged breaths. I stared at her, her dusty hair and bronze complexion… she was still so beautiful. She would always be beautiful to me.

"Ryou…" I looked up, it was dark and only a small flame lit the tiny room we were cramped in, and yet when I saw Bakura's face it seemed to capture all the light. His face was soft, as if the taught string that kept his harden features in place had been cut, and his eyes were wet and watery with tears that hadn't yet fallen. I was so shocked at the vulnerable sight I couldn't find the words to reply, "She's going to die… isn't she?"

I finally broke away from Bakura's gaze, unable to face him any more. Our leader shouldn't look so broken. Instead I turned to my beautiful friend, who whimpered in her sleep, and stroked away a sweaty lock of hair, "yes, she is."

oooooooooooooooooooo

We carried Teana's body wrapped in cloth with us down to the Nile, which wasn't too far away. We were far away from Amunet's Spot but it still felt eerily similar to the day we had said goodbye to my little sister.

Bakura was cradling Teana's body in his arms, knelt beside the stream. I felt like words should be said, that someone should pray and ensure that Teana's journey into the next world would be safe, but I knew no such prayers. It was weird really how many deaths Bakura and I had dealt with and yet we had never had to deal with laying a body to rest.

We stayed on the bank for quite sometime, Bakura holding her body, and me just standing there numbly. I hadn't cried yet, and neither had Bakura, however, he had been in this eerily silent mourning from the moment Teana had passed. It was almost like something had snapped and I feared that this may have been the last straw… but I didn't know what people did when they couldn't take anymore so I didn't tend to think about it. Eventually Bakura begun to wade out into the water and I followed him closely. We walked out as far as it was safe to go and still Bakura just held the body protectively and when I noticed Bakura couldn't bring himself to part with the body I gently rubbed his arm.

"It's time to… to let go,"

Suddenly Bakura let out a sound like a sob that he was desperately trying to hold back, but he still didn't release the body.

"Bakura you have to let go," I tried to sound soothing but my voice cracked and he just stubbornly shook his head, "B-Bakura, come on," I was crying now and found myself almost exhausted with the tears. I had cried enough for one lifetime.

"Sh-she can't be gone," Bakura gasped out, his face was dry but his shoulders were shaking, "gods n-no she can't be,"

I ran my hand through my hair, turning away from my friend as he broke down. I couldn't actually stand to see him so weak.

"Well she _is_ gone," I snapped through tears.

"It should be me Ryou it sh-should have been me. Not her. N-not them…"

"T-them?" I was suddenly confused but couldn't face him yet.

"Teana, Amunet, Kisara… it should h-have been m-me…"

"Idiot…" I sobbed and rubbed my eyes, "if you weren't here who wouldn't protected them?"

"WHO DO I HAVE LEFT TO PROTECT?!" Bakura's sudden shouting startled me into turning and facing him and as we did I saw the first tear escape down Bakura's cheek. We stood there silently, Teana's covered head resting like a doll's against Bakura's chest and the water lapping up around our waists. Eventually Bakura turned away and gently let Teana's body fall from his arms, which shook as the weight was relieved. When he turned back to me I was still staring at him.

"Me," My voice was dry and shaky, "you still have me."

oooooooooooooooooooo

_I have all these feels_

**_And they're kind of leaking into my writing, which is really kind of convenient. Anyways yeah more sadness. Boo._**

**_It doesn't really get better, seriously if you want a feel good fic go elsewhere but if however you find yourself actually enjoying this fic and the emotional involvement stay with me! There's not much further to go, like only one more chapter! There will be a very small sequel after this called 'the two of us' from Bakura's point of view which will be about modern day Yami Bakura and his feelings towards Ryou assuming he has all the memories from this fic, it will be much shorter than this fic but that's something for you to look forward to! Or to avoid._**


	15. Five, four, three, two, one

**_Finale_**

"Your hand is disgusting," I jumped and snatched my hand away from Bakura.

It had been weeks since Teana died and we had continued our travels down the Nile, stopping in the shade of the trees to sleep but we were running out of food and good water so we would have to return to a village or town soon. However, that wasn't concerning me right now. I had been asleep when I had felt something pulling on my arm and I had woken to find Bakura leaning over me and unravelling the bandage around my hand.

"W-what are you doing?"

"I noticed I hadn't seen it in a while. You always keep it tightly bound and never clean it in front of me anymore so I knew you wouldn't show me if I asked,"

"There's a reason!"

Bakura just leaned back into a more casual sitting position; his legs spread out in front of him "it's gotten real bad, huh?"

Calming a little I nodded and begun to wrap the rag back around my fingers.

"Maybe you should let it get some air? There's no point hiding it,"

I looked up shocked then shook my head, "what if it makes you sick?"

Bakura tilted his head in confusion, "makes me sick?"

I bowed my head in shame, "I think it made Teana sick,"

Bakura blinked a couple of times then waved his hand, "all the more reason for it to get some air. You really need it to start healing,"

"It's been like this for months now… you really think it can still heal?"

Bakura shrugged his shoulders, "hell if I know. I'm no healer. But I know I'm strong so it's unlikely I'll get ill,"

I looked back and forth between my hand and Bakura a couple of times before begrudgingly undoing the rest of the rag, to let my hand free in the air.

Bakura smiled, obviously pleased with my decision, "we'll have to go to a town in the morning, need to stock up on a few things,"

I nodded in agreement, "I was thinking the same thing,"

"Right, then lets get some more sleep before the sun rises,"

ooooooooooooooooooo

We were only walking a short while before we found a town near by. A fairly large town with a steady flow of residence, there were drinking spots and a market and a plethora of ally ways and winding roads, all built on fairly flat ground.

"Have we been here before?" Bakura voiced what I was only moments away from thinking myself. Everything did seem very familiar but the flat ground in these parts tended to make most places look the same.

"I'm not sure," I admitted, "seems a little familiar doesn't it?"

Bakura nodded and he looked puzzled and I understood why. It wasn't like Bakura to forget things, not even the tiniest of details.

"Don't worry yourself about it. We've been so many places we're bound to start repeating ourselves,"

And with that we set off to the market and used our remaining stolen money to buy some warm food and clean water and I noticed we were running low on anything worth trading, so soon we would have to go pick pocketing again, I made a mental note to tell Bakura this later.

When we had finished in the market place dusk was settling in and we once again got the sense of Déjà vu as we looked for shelter.

"We've defiantly been here before," Bakura muttered.

"What's so bad about that?" I asked picking at a piece of bread.

"I have a bad feeling about this place, don't you?"

I shrugged, "it just feels familiar to me,"

To calm Bakura's nerves instead of finding a shelter straight away I dragged him to one of the taverns to have a drink before bed. We spent and traded our remaining items of worth and got pleasantly buzzed on the beer that was handed and Bakura finally seemed to unwind.

We walked out of the bar with our arms around each other and swaying side to side.

"Shit Ryou, we'll never find anywhere to stay now," he chuckled and rested his head on my own.

"B-… Bakura it won't matter where we sleep tonight," I hiccupped mid-sentence.

We aimlessly walked into the night, drunkenly chatting away for quite some time.

"Ryou where are we…?"

"Doesn't look so familiar anymore huh?"

He laughed but nudged me with his elbow, "seriously, I don't know where we're going,"

We stumbled to a stop and I propped myself up against a wall as Bakura twirled around as if that would help him recognise anything. "Stay here I'ma go look for familiar landmarks," he slurred and started swaying away.

"Ugh Bakura don't leave me…" I threw my head forward, "think… I'ma be sick…"

"Didn't think I'd see you here again," Suddenly a hand grabbed my face and threw it back so it smacked against the wall. I cried out in shock and pain and before I knew it a hand was grabbing my hair and pulling me further upwards, off of my feet. "Remember us? Because we certainly remember you,"

ooooooooooooooooooo

Bakura wondered around the winding roads and found nowhere he recognised. He groaned and pined for his sense of familiarity he had had earlier in the day but right now everything was blurry and unclear, and there were no notable landmarks to even lead them back to the tavern or market place. Huffing in defeat Bakura started his way back towards where he left Ryou and felt a sense of anger at himself. He shouldn't have really left Ryou alone. Ryou was stronger, stronger than he thought, but Bakura knew that no one should ever be left alone no matter your size or gender, actually right now Bakura was sure _he _shouldn't have been left alone and this assumption was clarified as his feet started to dance on their own and sent Bakara flailing into the side of a building, "bloodyhellgodsdamnit…" he growled and punched the wall in annoyance. How dare it slam into him so rudely? So rude… like the Pharaoh. Pissing Pharaoh. Fucking screws everything up. Everything would be much better without him. Stupid royalty. Stupid priests. Fucking millennium items. If it weren't for those Ra damn it items none of this would have happened. He'd have his family, he'd have Kisara, Teana and Amunet, he wouldn't be scarred and Ryou's hand wouldn't be…

The sense of realisation hit Bakura so hard his head actually snapped back. That's why he recognised this place. This is where it had happened.

Those men had cornered him and Ryou and threatened them and scarred them. Bakura ran his hand over his face and felt the now familiar feeling of raised flesh running down his cheek and over his eye.

Oh _shit._

ooooooooooooooooooo

I fell to my knees as I was shoved down. I was out numbered and outsized not to mention the fact I was drunk and tired. I yelped as a foot kicked me harshly in the ribs and I fell to the side curling my knees into myself and tucking my head in as to try and protect as much of me as I could as blow after blow rained down on me. After awhile two hands grabbed me, one rubbing the scruff of my neck the other digging into my hair and I was pulled up out of my defensive position and a fist punched into my gut causing me to double over on my knees.

I was too drunk to take in who these men were, to recognise their voices and faces. Even with taunts and threats trying to jog my memory, I was too panicked and too drunk to realise who my assailants were. At least that was until I was pushed down and a sandaled foot dug their heal into my bandaged hand. I screamed this time, the noise ripping out of my bruised throat.

"This still giving you issues then?" one man spoke and another laughed as the heel dug down further on my hand, "Nice to see my handy work lasted so long but that really begs the question of… why did you come back?"

I groaned at the pain, unable to reply but realisation started to gnaw at the side of my mind.

"Obviously lookin' for a fight!" another, gruffer voice, contributed.

"Obviously,"

I was pulled to my feet again this time and hand grabbed my face, fingers digging into my soft cheeks. "Were you looking for a fight? Did you not take us seriously?"

"P-please…" I was devastated that the first words I had managed were a plea and as expected the man merely laughed.

"I don't listen to thieves beggin'," Suddenly a sharp scorching pain stabbed into my side and I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out and I could only double over in pain.

"Fuck, was that a knife?"

"Gahiji! You didn't have to kill the kid!"

"Fuck this let's get out of here,"

I was staring into the face of the man who had scarred me so long ago and he stared back even as his companions walked away.

"How does it feel?" he pulled me in closer, "dieing?"

I gasped and shook my head in disbelief, "y-y-you're m-messed up…"

He chuckled, "people like you killed the people I loved," He spat and dropped me to the ground, "there's nothing 'messed up' about closure, _thief_,"

And I had to fight the bile that rose up as I realised a sense of empathy and agreement with what he had said… we could never kill the Pharaoh but would we falter to kill a man with similar sins? What am I thinking about? I'm dieing… I don't want _him _or anyone like him to be my final thoughts.

Oh gods my final thoughts.

Bakura…

Bakura I need you.

ooooooooooooooooooo

I could feel strong arms around me pulling me up and trying to comfort me but the motion caused me to cry out.

"You're alive! Oh gods Ryou I'm so sorry I can't, I can't… this can't. Oh fuck, oh _fuck!"_

"B-bakura you're not making sense…"

"I did it again," he cried, "I let someone else die,"

"M'not dead… yet…" I smiled awkwardly and I suddenly realised the grotesque situation. I was dieing, right here I was bleeding to death in the arms of my last remaining friend, the last survivor of Kul Elna.

It was like we were cursed. From the moment we escaped that tragedy everything and everyone was hell bent on killing us. And I always thought it would be me who was the last… I couldn't believe I was leaving this world with Bakura still living, but that made sense right? He always was the stronger one.

"You can _not _die," He begged, "What will I do? Ryou I need you, more than the others. Whenever we lost someone it was ok because… _I still had Ryou."_

I tried to talk back but I was having trouble thinking of words. It felt like my eyes were really heavy… it actually felt a lot like falling asleep.

I wonder if the others felt this.

"Ryou!" I was snapped back to reality again, "what will I do Ryou… the voice is still there. It got better when we got rid of the ring, but damn it Ryou it's still _there. _I was going to tell you, I seriously intended to tell you… but now you're _dieing,"_

"M'sorry…B'kura…"

"Don't say you're sorry, please,"

"m'though so… sorry. But… really what were we… ever going to do?" I smiled and knew it was lopsided but I had little strength to correct it, "We have nothing… to aim for, nothing to… work towards. The only thing we ever had… was getting the items. That was the only thing we really… ever did. That and… survive,"

Bakura stared down at me with large eyes, "don't say that. That's what the voice says. That's what the voice wants. Gods Ryou no…"

"Mmmm maybe… it's right?"

For a second it was very warm. Like burning hot, hotter than the hottest day I've experienced in the desert but then it was cool and soothing and the water lapped at my aching skin and we were all there, in the water.

In the river.

ooooooooooooooooooo

Bakura sat on his own, out in the desert. He was ready to die. He was ready to die with his family and friends.

_No. Don't die with them._

Bakura squeezed his eyes shut and pulled at his hair. The second Ryou had gone it was like the ring was around his neck again. Choking and squeezing him, telling him what to do.

_I don't wish to harm you Bakura. We can avenge them, set your family free. Do as I say. I promise you we'll get them. We'll get them all._

"No, I won't listen to you," Bakura physically put his hands over his ears but that only made it all the more clear that the voice was inside his head.

_You're the last one; will you really die without a fight?_

"Yes, I will. What else is there left to fight for?"

The voice laughed and the sound was unbearably weird to have inside of his head. The voice had never sounded so calm and collected it was usually maniacal and frantic.

Have you ever heard of revenge? You really want to leave this world without leaving even a single mark on the Pharaoh's precious, flawless, life?

"I-… don't…"

He killed them all, for power. Even by extension he killed your friends. And you can do the same, kill them all. Kill everyone he loves. Make him hurt like you hurt, like they hurt and set your families souls free.

"How can I? I'm just one person,"

I am a God, Bakura. And I can make you one and the same with me. We'll join together and be together, do as I say. Do it, do it! We can so we must, WE CAN SO WE MUST!

Bakura noted the normal sense of insanity in the voice again and somehow it made more sense than it ever had before. He had wanted this, he had always wanted this. He had always wanted revenge on the Pharaoh and his family but he had been scared of dieing because he needed to protect his friends but now…

Do it, Bakura. Bakura, I will teach you so much. We can do it, we will do it, we will rule together you will be my means, we need the items Bakura just like Ryou wanted, don't you want that? To do as he wanted. Get the items Bakura! BAKURA!

That's exactly what he wanted, the items. He wanted to sit on the blood stained throne, he wanted to be known throughout Egypt, the fabled king of thieves. He would steal bigger and better things because he had nothing to loose. Hadn't every moment been leading to this? Really, when he thinks back, it all makes sense. That he should continue down this inventible path.

Do it, Bakura. We can so we MUST! Get them Bakura get the items Bakura.

Get them.

Get them!

GET THEM!

**_Fin._**


End file.
